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Comment by mike-the-mikado | Hacker News Reader

In all this, I've not seen any mention of what "KVM" means...

"Keyboard, Video, Mouse" is what the acronym means for anyone wondering. Some IT workers will have one at their desk to switch a single set of monitors, keyboards and mice between multiple computers.

In this context, however, there's an additional expectation that these devices make this happen over a network, so that you can handle things like BIOS configuration fully remotely.

> so that you can handle things like BIOS configuration fully remotely.

Yeah, the important distinction here is that these devices somewhat fulfill the role of a standalone IPMI[1] device. IPMI is typically built into server motherboard (SuperMicro) which allows an administrator to reboot a machine or configure BIOS over a network. Your typical KVM does not feature this.

However, where these lack is that they still require a video card. IPMI built into a motherboard can run on an entirely headless system.

There are also commercial versions of this, such as the Lantronix Spider KVM over IP[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Managemen...

[2] https://www.lantronix.com/products/lantronix-spider/

Keyboard Video Mouse. It's a device for receiving video output from a computer and providing keyboard and mouse input from a remote operator.

Good to note—I should at least in the video have a little text overlay that shows 'KVM = Keyboard Video Mouse'. You forget sometimes how acronym-laden our industry is, and even the ones you find most basic... better to spell it out for someone who might not operate in the same area.

It's more important that one learns what a KVM is rather than what the letters stand for. Like you don't need to know what laser stands for to know what a laser is.

Edit: I say these here mainly because expanded out, the title says "Raspberry Pi 'Keyboard Video Mouse's Compared". That still means nothing to someone who doesn't know what a KVM is (actually makes it sound like HID devices specifically made for the Pi).

Even more when the same acronym is also used for Kernel based Virtual Machine.. very confusing!

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