Deskflow – Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers | Hacker News Reader

Deskflow – Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers

github.com

Mere 2 weeks ago, I needed to run 2 PCs with 1 set of mouse+keyboard. I remembered using a great and free little app called Synergy back in the old days, so I ended up in the whole process of (re)discovering Synergy (which now at v3 became a paid app with features I don't need), then its v1 fork Barrier (together with also learning that it is abandoned but nobody had the decency to warn about it in the project page, why people are like that?), and the follow-up Input Leap. What a trip!

All these are addressed in Deskflow README. But I fail to see where it comes from...

is Deskflow a parallel fork that raised simultaneously with Barrier, but now is suddenly gettingmore traction?

How come Synergy itself funds it, which would appear that undermines their commercial offering?

OK this helps a lot to give some perspective:

https://github.com/deskflow/deskflow/wiki/History

So Deskflow could be called the current-day evolution of the original Synergy v1! Barrier and Input Leap were forks, but this one is the project that acts as upstream to the company that builds a sellable commercial product based on it.

Now that's clearer, after all pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Yep, can confirm that this is being driven and supported by the Synergy team. I’m a long time subscriber of synergy, having picked up one of their lifetime licenses many years ago.

I stopped using it but recently had the need to revisit it. Encountered a problem with mouse speed between retina (Mac OS X) and a non retina (Windows) display. Was able to fix this using what was the synergy open source base at the time.

I was working on this, just as the transition took place to Deskflow and the team were helpful in getting this fix, over to the new code base.

Very happy with the interaction and open source support.

Ah nice. I used Synergy 1 until Synergy 2, even paid for it. The whole v2 debacle made me stop using Synergy entirely, and I went back to more traditional methods.

Was recently thinking about how I missed the old Synergy. Time to check out Deskflow ig seems.

I've used one of the variants of this (barrier) in the past on a very low budget video wall.

3x3 array of 32"-ish monitors each attached to a raspberry pi, so it was extremely useful to control from a single keyboard/mouse.

It's nice to see it's still going strong, and that they're making efforts to keep the forks/variants aligned.

I think this is a great product overall and many people have had great things to say about it all the time. However, I still felt concerned with possible dependency on the network and the lag that can come out of it.

For that reason, I hooked myself up into Logitech Bolt technology, where you can pair up the same device to up to three devices and switch between them using a dedicated button. It has always worked very well for me.

Microsoft Garage has a tool like this called Mouse Without Borders. I used it 10 years ago, not sure what the current status and platform compatibility is today:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=354...

I’ve recently found the Adder CCS-PRO, which is a hardware based approach. Neat units.

https://www.adder.com/en/kvm-solutions/adder-free-flow

I was positively surprised to see it provides build for Windows! I'm curious how it compares to Mouse without Borders.

They really should call it "souris sans frontières" a la Doctors without borders

Huh, didn’t know about this one. I still use Barrier on metal and share to a Linux

I’ve been a paid synergy user for 10? years. Works great for multiple computers + OS scenarios. It does flake out very occasionally. I’ll have check deskflow out for some embedded and pi projects I have coming up.

I'm a user, I like it.

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