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Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

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Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#91

Post by 2c2c2c »

vhodges wrote: post #41
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 "…

You can switch video inputs using dcc (eg https://www.ddcutil.com/ ) so you could bind a hotkey to do that or if Synergy/Barrier/Input-leap can be scripted it could do that part too. There is also a utility that watches for usb device change events on a cheap USB keyboard/mouse (no video) switcher that does the video automatically, but I had it lock up the usb stack on my Linux machine and never really got it to work…

bumped into reading about ddc a couple times this month now. does this have support across wide number of monitors? i like high refresh rate monitors and want to switch between a macbook and windows pc quickly depending on home/work. seems like a lot of kvms are going to either choke, not have usbc inputs

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#93

Post by mikepurvis »

spicybright wrote: post #70
wyager wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should just be a switch, no complex electronics For any high-bandwidth thing like HDMI, you need to do clock recovery and copy over the bitstream at the very least. You can't just use relays or whatever. Doing this at 10gbps+ is going to cost a bit.

I don't see that much of a reason you can't do a relay to "disconnect" one hdmi and plug in another. The computers would see the HDMI cable/USB cords unplugging and re-plugging. Obviously this can be problematic, but I can't see it being that expensive.

Even outside of impedence issues, you can't just use relays because then every switch is basically an unplug/replug, meaning that:

a) the display will flip out and spend multiple seconds re-syncing itself, and

b) the sources may take actions such as resizing the desktop, switching to the internal display, pausing the game, whatever.

Part of the point of a hardware KVM is that it negotiates its own connection to all of the devices involved, and only changes which signals are passed through at any given moment, resulting in instantaneous switchovers.

Now, a multi-input monitor can also do this, but then you have to deal with whatever compat issues are involved in commanding it to switch over DDC (see for example https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch), and it typically also won't be as fast as a hardware solution since input switching speed isn't a metric most people care about when monitor shopping.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#95

Post by vhodges »

2c2c2c wrote: post #91
vhodges wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can switch video inputs using dcc (eg https://www.ddcutil.com/ ) so you could bind a hotkey to do that or if Synergy/Barrier/Input-leap can be scripted it could do that part too. There is also a utility that watches for usb device change events on a cheap USB keyboard/mouse (no video) switcher that does the video automatically, but I had it lock up the usb stack on my Linux machine and never really got it to work…

bumped into reading about ddc a couple times this month now. does this have support across wide number of monitors? i like high refresh rate monitors and want to switch between a macbook and windows pc quickly depending on home/work. seems like a lot of kvms are going to either choke, not have usbc inputs

Not an expert in this by any means, but I think all modern monitors have support for this (eg brightness controls, etc from an applet). Monitors are named, so it supports multiple monitors too.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#96

Post by TaylorAlexander »

wyager wrote: post #87
spicybright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that much of a reason you can't do a relay to "disconnect" one hdmi and plug in another. The computers would see the HDMI cable/USB cords unplugging and re-plugging. Obviously this can be problematic, but I can't see it being that expensive.

Because mechanical relays have high impedance at HDMI frequencies.

Yup. A quick search suggests HDMI runs at clock speeds of 25MHz to 340MHz. Not running that over a relay! Also HDMI is many pins, so you would need a low impedance high pole count relay even if it was possible, and such a relay plus the device wrapped around it plus some profit margin means you're not making it any cheaper.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#97

Post by greatgib »

Thanks for sharing, so awesome that someone did the fork of synergy to stay oss and free.

I was a big user of synergy 1 and was quite disappointed by the takeover that led to the current partially proprietary Synergy.

It was a slide, first "let's have a binary builds for paying users to fund the project" then "let's have important features only for paid users with a license code needed", then the guys goal was to create and develop a company, hiring dev and assistants... The original spirit was lost.

This annoyed me a lot based on the fact that it was not the original developer of Synergy.

So, for long time I was thinking of doing a fork. And so, I'm very grateful that some people did it and had the courage to continue it.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#98

Post by Aeolun »

zackmorris wrote: post #56

Barrier looks great, but does anyone know why KVM switches with DisplayPort or HDMI are so outrageously expensive? It should just be a switch, no complex electronics, so I truly can't figure out why any KVM should cost more than say $30-50 US. I suspect DRM or patents for rent seekers are involved somehow. Or maybe they're playing on the naivety of the business community towards this stuff. I'd sure like to know, and…

My first KVM switch was in the price range you mentioned, but switching caused the screen to go black for a while due to some HDMI stuff. The more expensive one I have now keeps both connections open at the same time, and switching takes a second or so.

I dunno, I started thinking of it like switching from one game server to another, if you (somehow) do it in the middle of a game, stuff is bound to explode.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#99

Post by alar44 »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #90
zackmorris wrote: post #56

Barrier looks great, but does anyone know why KVM switches with DisplayPort or HDMI are so outrageously expensive? It should just be a switch, no complex electronics, so I truly can't figure out why any KVM should cost more than say $30-50 US. I suspect DRM or patents for rent seekers are involved somehow. Or maybe they're playing on the naivety of the business community towards this stuff. I'd sure like to know, and…

So, I might be missing something, but there are a couple of no-name HDMI/USB KVMs on Amazon in your price range (i.e., https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NVKHRRT ) Some of the reviews suggest it acts as a pretty brain dead switch, which may cause problems with the OS. I know for a while I had a Windows 10 PC's monitor on a remote switch for silly reasons. I had to make sure to lock the PC before the monitor would turn off,…

In addition to what you said, these things will shit out in a couple years. Button breaks, cord goes bad, etc. You pay for the quality.

Re: Barrier: Share mouse and keyboard between computers

#100

Post by loxias »

durazabu wrote: post #15

Barrier has been forked to https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap which has a hundred more commits by the same devs. The name is still barrier though, has anyone more info about this fork?

Geez, only a few months ago I noticed that synergy wasn't in APT anymore and had to learn about (and set up) barrier.

Now it's forked again?! I don't know what, but this smells like something bad.

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