Synergy – Finally after three years I gave it a try (and must now accept a –5 debuf to my geek cred)

I blogged about Synergy just over three years ago, Synergy - Mouse/Keyboard Sharing Utility for Across Different OS's, but until yesterday never got around to actually installing it. Oh the time I’ve wasted in not using this utility!

If you have more than one computer and monitor on/under your desk and play the keyboard/mouse swivel game (i.e. swivel from one keyboard/mouse to an other and back) then you have to give Synergy a try. It’s free, small, easy to download and install, and while its configuration is not the 100% the easiest to grok at first, if you spend 1.2 minutes reading the Using Synergy Guide it’s not hard at all to get configured. And it just works.

I have three notebooks on my desk, XP, Vista and Win7. I now have Synergy on all three and it’s working like a charm… What was I thinking in not using this utility before? [A resounding thump is heard as Greg smacks his forehead]

“What the heck IS Synergy?”

Think of it as a software KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switch. It lets you share one keyboard and mouse across different computers, all done in software.

You designate one system as the Primary. This is the system who’s keyboard/Mouse can be used across the different systems (the utility doesn’t effect the local keyboard/mouse so you can still physically swivel and use them). You then configure what systems are on the right/left/top/bottom of the Primary.

So if you say GregVista is to the right of GregXPPrimary then when you move the mouse off the screen to right on GregXPPrimary control will automagically switch over to GregVista. Then you configure Syngery on GregVista telling it that GregXPPrimary is to the left, so when you move the mouse off the screen to the left on GergVista control switchs back to GregXPPrimary. All without removing your hands from the keyboard/mouse physically connected to GregXPPrimary…

Almost like how multiple monitors, how you set where the different monitors are? Synergy is like that, except you’re switch actual machines.

Oh yeah, and guess what else Syngery does? It provides a shared clipboard. So copy a URL on GregVista, move the mouse to GregXPPrimary and paste that URL into IE… All seamless, simple, easy and cheap (and OSS).

Syngery

“…

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.

Synergy is open source and released under the GNU Public License (GPL).

System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me (the Windows 95 family)
• Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP (the Windows NT family)
• Mac OS X 10.2 or higher
• Unix
  • X Windows version 11 revision 4 or up
  • XTEST extension
    (use "xdpyinfo | grep XTEST" to check for XTEST)

All systems must support TCP/IP networking…

…”

 

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Synergy - Mouse/Keyboard Sharing Utility for Across Different OS's