Synergy - control multiple PCs with one keyboard

A laptop, which is constantly on the table next to the monitor, has recently been added to my work computer. It is necessary to work at both computers at the same time, and I began to bother to constantly shift my hands from one keyboard / mouse to another.

I thought: "How great it would be to make the laptop display a continuation of the desktop display, and at the same time control them with the same keyboard and mouse!" It turned out there is a way. And it is called Synergy .

Description and principle of operation

This wonderful open source software licensed under the GPL license can connect multiple PC screens to one large virtual screen. In this case, the operating systems on them may be different. Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other operating systems are supported.

The principle of operation is very simple: once you move the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen of one PC, it appears on the edge of the screen of another:

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Customization

Setting up the program is quite simple. Let me show this on the example of two computers, one of which (the desktop) has Windows XP installed, and the other (laptop) has Windows Vista. We will manage both of them, naturally, using the keyboard and the desktop mouse.
Suppose that the network names of computers without domain suffixes are respectively desktop and laptop .

1. Install Synergy on each computer.
   
2. Launch Synergy on the desktop. Select the option Share this computer keyboard and mouse (server) . Click the Configure button.
   
   
3. In the window that appears, Screens & Links, you need to add screens. One screen corresponds to a PC, not a monitor (on the desktop I have two monitors, but for Synergy this is one screen). The screen name is the network name of the computer without a domain suffix.
   
   
   After adding the screens, you need to define the rules for moving the cursor between the screens (Links). In my case, the laptop is on the table to the right of the desktop PC displays. Add two “links”:
   • 0 to 100% of the right of the desktop goes to 0 to 100% of the laptop
   • 0 to 100% of the left laptop goes to 0 to 100% of the desktop
   It is important to define both rules, otherwise the transition will work only in one direction, and, going to the screen of another computer, it will be impossible to return back.
   
   This completes the server configuration.
   
4. By clicking the Start button, we put our desktop on standby for client connections. Do not forget to open the port in the firewall settings if it is running. By default, Synergy uses port 24800.
   
5. Now run Synergy on the client (laptop). Everything is much simpler here: enter the network name or IP address of the desktop and click Start .
   
   
6. Enjoy!

Links

You can download the tiny (less than a megabyte) Synergy distribution from the program's website: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ .
At the time of posting, the latest version of Synergy is 1.3.1. Here are the direct download links:

• Windows: SynergyInstaller-1.3.1.exe , 902 Kb
• Linux: synergy-1.3.1-1.i386.rpm , 642 Kb
• Mac OS X: synergy-1.3.1-1.OSX.tar.gz , 921 Kb