this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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I actually paid for synergy because I was using it extensively back in the day (probably about 10 years ago? Maybe less? IDK. Long enough that I don't care to remember when); and after an update I realized the windows service portion had a bad memory leak. I don't reboot my PC very often, so I kept getting memory errors despite having more memory than the average (I believe it was 24G at the time, when 8G was considered "good" instead of it being the bare minimum that it is now).... I couldn't even always fix it by restarting the service, since it was some kind of memory mapped file or something that was causing the problem, so it didn't register normally that the process was consuming the space. The only way to fully resolve the problem was to disable the service (or remove the software) and restart. So I abandoned synergy for a long time because I wasn't sure when they would actually recognize the problem and fix it.
I got a notice late last year that synergy had updated and my license was going to be given a free upgrade so I could use the newer version at no extra cost, so I figured it would be a good time to try it again, and I had a situation come up in December (ish) where I actually wanted to see if I could get it working; I couldn't. Now that I'm running exclusively multi monitor setups, synergy's configuration doesn't actually give you the option of setting where your screens are connected individually or anything, it just shows each PC as a single display, and for the life of me, not only could I not get it right, but I couldn't even find the trigger point that would move my mouse and keyboard controls to the other system. Even if I managed to get them over there, I had no idea how, and I had no idea how to get back.
So I disconnected it entirely and I'm back at square one. I bought a multimonitor KVM to fix another problem and it reduced or eliminated my need to use synergy.... But I still want synergy to work (or something like it). Is barrier more robust?
Sounds like you’d like Mouse Without Borders
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
Does this only work for Windows?
I was hoping for something cross platform. Since synergy sucks and will probably continue to suck for a while, I'd like to find something in the interim, or to replace it entirely so I can control a Linux system from my windows PC, or something like that.
Don't get me wrong, this is great for Windows, but I originally got synergy because I was using a Linux system as a media player, so I could mouse over and change tracks or load a playlist or whatever I wanted to do without having to reach across the room for another keyboard or something like that.
I haven't used that set up in a while, though I might switch back to it with a raspberry Pi or something eventually, and just have a small micro system playing media using chromium to load up YouTube music (or whatever). The old set up was the Linux system using xmmp (I believe) to play music from a NAS. The output went through a physical mixer, so I had immediate access to turn up, or down, the music from my media system, without dedicating resources to music on my main (gaming) system. This was back in the days of Windows XP and I wanted to squeeze every last FPS I could from my main system, so I offloaded my music to another system; which was some old P4 that I had lying around. The HDD was questionable so I never put anything on it that I couldn't lose, hence all the music was on my network storage.
At the same time I was using the network storage system (I call it a NAS, but it was really a Windows box with some file shares) to do other offloading tasks, like downloading Linux ISOs from torrent files.
I did a lot to ensure my system would not get bogged down. I have servers now for any file shares and torrent stuff, but I've never solved the media system problem. Using a pi or similar SBC and piping the audio through the mixer I still have connected to my main computer is still appealing to me.... Among other things... And just putting up a display for it next to my monitors and roaming my mouse and keyboard to it to pick what I want to watch/listen to, still seems like a good idea to me.
I don't want to get restricted to Windows to do it though, since then I would need a much more power-hungry system to run it. I've concerned myself a lot more with efficiency since I was younger, considering that I'm paying for my own power now. Historically, I would be paying for it through rent that includes utilities. I own a house now and pay all my own utilities. So a sub 10W pi sounds good. Most windows systems, even very lightweight systems usually need at least double that.
VNC into the device.
I'm not sure I can drive any more screens on my main computer.
Why? I mean VNC in when you need access/to change something. Not all the time.
So you're proposing I use vnc to connect to a media system whenever I want to skip a track?
Unless you’ve got another solution that fits your requirements….
Plenty. All of them varying levels of bad.
Well then there it is.
The exact issue I asked for help with? Yes. There it is.
I'm not sure anyone doubted that was the issue; I didn't honestly expect someone to swoop in and just hand me a perfect solution.
I know that I'm not the target for most of these applications and my requirements are different than pretty much everyone seeking this style of software.
Long story short, it's a difficult problem and as of yet, I haven't found a workable solution. I'll keep looking. I have plenty of ideas of what to do when I finally solve this issue, but for now, I just have to make due.
Just try it. It’s free.