The Joys of Technology

I'm working on creating the most complicated desktop computer setup possible. Start with four computers. Add a KVM to switch so I only need one keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Now add a second head to the main desktop, so I have a 15" monitor connected through the KVM and a 19" that isn't. Got that all right?

But what if I'm using my Windows box on the KVM head and want to access something on the main Linux desktop's big monitor? I have tried, quite a number of times (unsucessfully), to move the mouse off the KVM screen over to other monitor like I can on the dual head rig. And then when I switch to it I can't see what's on the Windows machine. Conundrum.

Enter Synergy, which acts like a sort of network based KVM. One computer is the server, it has the keyboard and mouse, and you can move to any of the client's monitors. (So it's really only a KM switch.) Ah Hah! If we set up the Windows box as the server and the Linux desktop as a client, presto! We can then access both the Windows and Linux machines at the same time, but fortunately only when the KVM is pointing to the Windows box. Just think how confusing it would be to acess the screen of a computer you can't see...