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Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

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Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#31

Post by thoughtpalette »

mijoharas wrote: post #29
falcolas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only for the rootkit style anti-cheat software. Personal opinion: Don't put anything that matters, or connections to anything that matters, on computers with rootkit anti-cheat software installed. Even if the company itself is perfectly respectful, there's too many instances of supply chain attacks and attackers loitering on internal networks to trust such a vulnerability. At all.

I've been out of the PC gaming scene for a fair while. Which anti-cheat software would you describe as the "rootkit anti-cheat" software? (and is that all the stuff that doesn't work on linux?)

CoD has Ricochet: https://www.callofduty.com/warzone/ricochet

ESEA for CS:GO: https://play.esea.net/client

I've heard similar ones for Valorant, etc.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#32

Post by superkuh »

0des wrote: post #25
0xCMP wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an issue where they explain that they have disagreements with how barrier is run and the current owner does not want to pass control to them. They are the most active recent contributors. personally I am waiting for them to cut a stable release and then try it out. https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap/issues/1414

I only just recently heard about the synergy -> barrier transition and got everything dialed in on barrier... sigh . The aristocrats!

Barrier and input-leap are nice and all, but they're written for only modern OSes using modern library versions and language features.

If you want to share a mouse with an OS older than a decade or so you'll still have to use the original Synergy 1.x. It works on both old machines/OSes (all the way back to the 90s) and on the very newest released OSes. Given that, I don't really see a need for barrier or input leap. They're kind of niche, but it's nice someone's keeping the codebase going.

Basically the only reason to use newer forks of synergy is if you have an abnormally high DPI screen in your span.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#33

Post by superkuh »

roddux wrote: post #3

I love the look of this, but haven't been able to find any information about latency... It seems to be a local network solution? Light on details about how it works, short of reading source.

I've been using synergy, literally, since the year 2000. I used to play a lot of first person shooters and over that time I never had a latency issue with using a mouse/keyboard on my old computer to play games on my new computers (over ethernet). No perceptible difference.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#34

Post by falcolas »

mijoharas wrote: post #29
falcolas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only for the rootkit style anti-cheat software. Personal opinion: Don't put anything that matters, or connections to anything that matters, on computers with rootkit anti-cheat software installed. Even if the company itself is perfectly respectful, there's too many instances of supply chain attacks and attackers loitering on internal networks to trust such a vulnerability. At all.

I've been out of the PC gaming scene for a fair while. Which anti-cheat software would you describe as the "rootkit anti-cheat" software? (and is that all the stuff that doesn't work on linux?)

To add to the sibling comment:

- Denuvo Anti-cheat (used by Doom Eternal's multiplayer mode)

- Vanguard for Valorant

I refer to them as rootkits since they install Ring-0 kernel modules that are updated outside of your control.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#35

Post by finnh »

superkuh wrote: post #32
0des wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only just recently heard about the synergy -> barrier transition and got everything dialed in on barrier... sigh . The aristocrats!

Barrier and input-leap are nice and all, but they're written for only modern OSes using modern library versions and language features. If you want to share a mouse with an OS older than a decade or so you'll still have to use the original Synergy 1.x. It works on both old machines/OSes (all the way back to the 90s) and on the very newest released OSes. Given that, I don't really see a need for barrier or input leap.…

But Synergy is now commercial, with a stupid surcharge for TLS, so would it make more sense to say "the only reason to use synergy is if you're using an old OS and don't have hi-DPI screens"?

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#36

Post by justsomehnguy »

If you are in Windows only environment you can use Mouse wthout Borders [0]

Works fine enough on WiFi, supports clipboard sync and file copy (but reliable only for small files).

(and if I remember it right I learned about it here in some thread about Synergy...)

[0] https://aka.ms/mm

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#37

Post by superkuh »

finnh wrote: post #35
superkuh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barrier and input-leap are nice and all, but they're written for only modern OSes using modern library versions and language features. If you want to share a mouse with an OS older than a decade or so you'll still have to use the original Synergy 1.x. It works on both old machines/OSes (all the way back to the 90s) and on the very newest released OSes. Given that, I don't really see a need for barrier or input leap.…

But Synergy is now commercial, with a stupid surcharge for TLS, so would it make more sense to say "the only reason to use synergy is if you're using an old OS and don't have hi-DPI screens"?

No, you're thinking of the Synergy 2.x codebase. No one uses that and it's why Barrier exists. But Synergy 1.x is open and free as in freedom.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#38

Post by torton »

I tried using Barrier in a fairly complex setup (Linux, Windows, Mac with all of them being sometimes unavailable). Found some annoying UX issues (Windows privileged/login screen kicks the mouse back into the original position on a different monitor) and more importantly the Linux machine would wedge itself with 100% CPU used by Barrier.

This is a nice tool but not yet production ready.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#39

Post by zanecodes »

I can't install Barrier on my work laptop for policy reasons, but I don't want to buy a KVM, so a project I've been interested in building when I have time is porting enough of the Barrier/Synergy protocol to the Particle Photon [1] or BeagleBone Black [2] I've had lying around for a while, and then configuring it to emulate a keyboard and mouse via its USB gadget driver, allowing it to control my work laptop over USB.

On the Photon at least, emulating a keyboard and mouse is incredibly easy and is baked into the firmware, but implementing the Barrier protocol so that it can appear as a client on the network and pass on the keyboard/mouse input seems like it's going to take some effort.

[1] https://docs.particle.io/photon/ [2] https://beagleboard.org/black

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#40

Post by taffit »

mwexler wrote: post #9

This still requires a dedicated monitor connection to each box with a hardware or source switch, right? Or a screen per device? That is, the KVM (in the VGA days) used to switch the mouse, keyboard, and video source so a single monitor, keyboard, and mouse switches across devices. But barrier doesn't try to solve that part, I think. Modern HDMI KVM hardware switches seem rather expensive; anyone found a good way to "…

Some more modern monitors can also be switched by software. I personally use a laptop with an external monitor that is also connected to my desktop. Whenever I need to switch from laptop to desktop (using Barrier or Mouse without Borders on Windows) I then invoke the magic of ControlMyMonitor by the wonderful NirSoft [1] using an Autohotkey-shortcut. This way I can share my monitor with the desktop and laptop. Sharing the keyboard and mouse works with Barrier. I provided some short instructions in an SO-answer [2].

[1] https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/control_my_monitor.html [2] https://superuser.com/a/1556618/299215

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