Sharing a keyboard & Mouse with my PC?

[dance]

Hi,

First of all I will tell you my set-up.

2 x 19" LCD Monitors
1 x 20" LCD Widescreen Monitor
1 x PC
1 x Mac Pro
2 x Mice
2 x Keyboards

I basically have the 20" and a 19" hooked up to my Mac and the other 19" to my PC. I also have a keyboard each for the MAC and PC.

What I want to do is share a mouse and keyboard for the MAC and PC. Does anyone know a good KVM solution for this?

Thanks

 

[Temujin]

Is your keyboard/mouse an USB or a PS/2 ?
Either way I would go with Trendnet. Been using one of their PS/2 ones for years with no problems at all.
They are multi-platform, well at least the one I checked out. Cheap too.

 

[blackbeard59]

Synergy

Or you could just try Synergy. It would allow you to have two or more systems on simultaneously, while using only a single keyboard & Mouse to control both of them. I use it at home to control 3 systems (one Windows, one Linux, and one Mac) and it works perfectly.

See attached for a view of my setup with this system. Yes there are three systems and two keyboards, but thats because I don't always use Synergy with the mac. The system on the left is always controlled through Synergy, as it doesn't have a keyboard and mouse as such. the mac can be controlled through synergy should I decide to enable it.

The way it works is very similar to a dual monitor system under windows. when you move your mouse off one side of the screen it appears on the other machine. the keyboard follows the mouse.

Its a really efficient piece of software, with network overhead on a 100mb network at only 0.14%


Not sure if this is exactly what you're after or not.
Some comments from people on this solution would be greatly appreciated


p.s. I'd recommend using the Windows system as the Synergy Server.

 

[abdm]

Do you know if you can use this with laptops (i.e. using the latop screen instead of an external monitor). I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be possible, just checking...

 

[DSchwartz88]

yea synergy works fine for anything. its amazing what open source will do. I use synergy on my powerbook g4 (thats my server) and then use my touchpad and keyboard on the powerbook to control my fujitsu tablet (since mac wont freakin come out with one). It all works seamlessly, albeit some lag (but thats because im using the university LAN as my network). A home network should be much faster.

 

[danielbriggs]

or you could try that belkin one that is made for a mac and a PC.

Can't remember the name. Belkin are excelent for KVM's got one for 2 pc's

 

[frankblundt]

I use a KVM from Aten. It was cheap, and USB so i can use a Mac keyboard. It allows you to switch function keys around (although you need a PC keyboard to set it up) and define which system it's accessing (so that a Mac will understand a PC keyboard). The only issue I've had with it is Ctr-Alt-Delete for logging into Windows which seems impossible to replicate on the Mac keyboard - but even for that it's no big deal to bring up the on-screen keyboard.

Very nice to be able to get rid of three monitors/keyboards/mice

 

[dance]

Excellent thanks guys... Some good advice there. Im going to take a look at the best option now.

 

[blackbeard59]

Let us know what you choose. Would be interesting to hear how you get on with Synergy if you try it out.

Best of luck!

 

[jTreu]

Or you could just try Synergy. It would allow you to have two or more systems on simultaneously, while using only a single keyboard & Mouse to control both of them. I use it at home to control 3 systems (one Windows, one Linux, and one Mac) and it works perfectly.

See attached for a view of my setup with this system. Yes there are three systems and two keyboards, but thats because I don't always use Synergy with the mac. The system on the left is always controlled through Synergy, as it doesn't have a keyboard and mouse as such. the mac can be controlled through synergy should I decide to enable it.

The way it works is very similar to a dual monitor system under windows. when you move your mouse off one side of the screen it appears on the other machine. the keyboard follows the mouse.

Its a really efficient piece of software, with network overhead on a 100mb network at only 0.14%


Not sure if this is exactly what you're after or not.
Some comments from people on this solution would be greatly appreciated


p.s. I'd recommend using the Windows system as the Synergy Server.

damn, nice set up.

 

[blackbeard59]

damn, nice set up.

Thanks ^.^ Its taken me a while to get it all how I like it

There's more photo's

feel free to take a look around / comment / rate them etc. The server is currently on my home net connection so it may be a little slow however its (hopefully) being moved to my department rack at work in the next month or so. yay for über amounts of free bandwidth