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Can I slave a Mac to another Mac?

Kingsly

Kingsly

macrumors 68040
Original poster
I am sure this has been asked before, but can I slave my eMac to my MBP and use not only the eMac screen, but processing power as well?
 
Kingsly said:
I am sure this has been asked before, but can I slave my eMac to my MBP and use not only the eMac screen, but processing power as well?
Click to expand...


just curious would this split up tasks among both computers so performace would increase? if so i would also be really interested in making my own little "super computer setup"
 
In general no.

1) You cannot easily use the eMac screen at all. Even the tasks that are distributable only use the other machine(s) for CPU time.

2) Applications need to be specially written to allow distribution of work to other machines. For hardcore multi-machine use there is XGrid. This is for the HPC crowd. XCode can also distribute compiling between machines on the network.
 
robbieduncan said:
In general no.
Click to expand...
Another exception of course would be X11 code, where you could use the eMac as a remote display for your X11 apps running on either Mac.

B
 
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do, but you probably can sort of do it. You can use VNC to control another Mac. The other option is to use Synergy which is a mouse/keyboard sharing program. For example, I keep my PowerBook to the left of my iMac on my desk at home. I have Synergy set up so that my PowerBook seems like just another screen, and when I move the mouse off the left side of my iMac screen, it goes onto the PowerBook and the keyboard and mouse control the PowerBook. Move it back to the right and it switches back to the iMac.

Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? With VNC, you'd see the eMacs screen on your MBP in a window (or full screen if you want) and could control it remotely.

Of course, you can't run an application on your MBP then just drag the window accross to the eMac and have it start running on the eMac, or share the two processors or anything like that. But it is certainly possible to link the two so that using them at the same time is more comfortable.
 
I don't know what the difference is, but I use QuickSynergy. It's probably not as powerful but I found it dead easy to set up and use.

My G4 iMac is controlled by my MacBook using this and I give it menial tasks to do. 🙂
 
I downloaded, but cant get it to work. Do I have to drop a firewall or something? I am trying over AP, do I need to run ethernet?
 
Kingsly said:
I downloaded, but cant get it to work. Do I have to drop a firewall or something? I am trying over AP, do I need to run ethernet?
Click to expand...

I run it over Airport. I've done it between a Mac and a Windows machine, and between two Macs. If you downloaded the regular Synergy, which is command-line only on a Mac. Check out QuickSynergy linked above. I hadn't seen that before.

I wrote my own AppleScripts to setup and start Synergy automatically, but I'm going to download QuickSynergy now, because it looks quite a bit easier.
 
I am trying quicksynergy. I tried both IP addresses and the computer's name. I still can take control of my eMac.

Where do I find the correct IP?
 
In my setup the iMac is the slave to the MacBook. Both are connected to the same wireless router.

On the MacBook I type "tims-imac.local" into the "left" box on the "client" page and click start.

Then on the iMac I type "tims-macbook.local" into the "server" page and click start. And then we're off!
 
sunfast said:
In my setup the iMac is the slave to the MacBook. Both are connected to the same wireless router.

On the MacBook I type "tims-imac.local" into the "left" box on the "client" page and click start.

Then on the iMac I type "tims-macbook.local" into the "server" page and click start. And then we're off!
Click to expand...
Not working!
I have the eMac, emac.local and my MBP, duncans-macbook-pro.local as the server.

No dice.

I see the computers in the network folder of my finder, though.🙁
 
Kingsly said:
Not working!
I have the eMac, emac.local and my MBP, duncans-macbook-pro.local as the server.

No dice.

I see the computers in the network folder of my finder, though.🙁
Click to expand...

Could it be a firewall problem? I've got TCP port 24800 open on my firewall for Synergy. I don't remember if I did that because it was necessary, but I suppose there's a good chance I did.
 
mduser63 said:
Could it be a firewall problem? I've got TCP port 24800 open on my firewall for Synergy. I don't remember if I did that because it was necessary, but I suppose there's a good chance I did.
Click to expand...
Wierdness... the eMac can control my MBP, but not the other way around!


EDIT: well, it worked for a minute... but I tried to make the MBP a server and now it doesn't work at all, even with the eMac being server...
 
Kingsly said:
Wierdness... the eMac can control my MBP, but not the other way around!


Perhaps I should try the command line version?
Click to expand...

Well, i had this same problem after seeing this thread. I could get my iBook to be the server but not the iMac. Well I shut everything down and restart both computers. This seems to have worked. I can now use the mouse and keyboard on my imac with my iBook. It really is nice. It is almost like having to monitors.

Just try shutting both comptuers down and then starting them back up.

Hope that helps
 
^^^

I've been trying for two days, and my MBP and eMac have been shut down since that time... I'll try again though. 😱
 
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