Keyboard And Mouse Sharing

The are a number of possible methods for sharing a keyboard and mouse between and IRIX workstation and another machine.

KVM Switch

There are often hardware incompatibilities with IRIX and KVM switches. The KVM needs to keep certain keyboard signals active or the IRIX workstation will complain. Some folk in the old Nekochan forums have reported success with Belkin manufactured KVM switches.

Some models reported to work are:

• Belkin SOHO F1DS104P
• Belkin FL1DL102U

More information about using PS/2 keyboards with KVM switches is available in the Keyboards_(PS/2_Style) article.

Teleffect

Teleffect is/was a 3rd party product from ElectricArc that was bundled with IRIX 6.5. Teleffect is a desktop service that allows multiple computers, IRIX or NT, to share a common keyboard and mouse while having separate monitors. Users can configure the screens so that as the mouse travels off one side of one screen it hops onto the other screen and now controls the other system. The tool for configuring Teleffect can be found on the Interoperability Application Catalog page.

Synergy

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.

Synergy has been compiled for IRIX and is in Nekoware.

x2vnc

x2vnc allows keyboard and mouse sharing with another machine which is running a vnc server such as TightVNC.

Precompiled binary for both exist in Nekoware.

x2x

If both workstation runs X servers, and there is a network connection between them, one of the simplest way to share is using the X11 based x2x application.

After downloading and extracting the source code onto the "master" workstation, create a makefile using the X11 utility xmkmf (i.e. enter xmkmf in a shell from with the x2x source code directory).

Next build the executable (note: on IRIX you probably want to use the system make for this, not GNU make)

make

and install it

make install

Next, from the "slave" machine, establish a socket connection over to the "master" using SSH

ssh -Y <master-hostname>

From within the remote shell, run the x2x executable and tell it where the slave's monitor is relative to the master's.

x2x -east -from :0.0

Now just drag the cursor of the appropriate edge of the screen on the master and take control of the keyboard and mouse input on the slaved machine.

Gnu's Not Unix