Some of the salient features of Synergy are listed below:ġ) It is a lightweight application with a very low footprint.Ģ) It is open source and entirely free of cost. Hence, it doesnt occupy space on your desk. On the other hand, Synergy is purely a software component. The operating system requirements for Synergy are given below:īut if we can also share the keyboard and mouse by using a KVM switch, then what is special about Synergy? Well, KVM is hardware hence, you have to purchase it, which adds to costs and also occupies some space on your desk. Synergy supports all major platforms and works fine with MS Windows, GNU/Linux and Mac OS X, allowing the user to seamlessly move the mouse cursor between multiple sessions. Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of clients that can be connected. To operate another system, just move your mouse pointer to the other systems screen. The server is the system to which the keyboard and mouse are physically connected. Synergy follows the client-server model, in which there is a single server and one or more clients. It is convenient when a single user wants to operate multiple systems, and is also useful in situations in which several systems are connected to a monitor and the user wants to operate them using a single keyboard and mouse. It is somewhat similar to the KVM (Keyboard, Video and Mouse) switch but is purely a software entity. Synergy is a software application that allows you to share a keyboard and a mouse between multiple systems. As long as both systems are reachable over the network, Synergy will do its job. It doesnt matter whether the keyboard or mouse are connected via PS2, USB or wireless whether the architecture is x86 or 圆4 or if the systems are connected using a wired or wireless network. And with the help of Synergy, they will be used to operate both these machines. An external keyboard and mouse are connected to the Ubuntu machine.
In my set-up, both the systems are laptops but any combination of desktop/laptop is fine. Figure 1 depicts the details of my set-up. So lets go ahead and explore this softwares configuration and some of its troubleshooting techniques.įor demonstration purposes, Ill use Windows 7 and Ubuntu GNU/Linux. This awesome software program clearly demonstrates this!ĭo you have two or more computers at your desk? And how do you operate them? Like everyone else, by using the keyboard and mouse of each computer, right? Wouldnt it be great if you could use just a single keyboard and mouse to operate multiple computers? Well, you can do that with Synergy. By definition, the word synergy implies that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This article discusses a program called Synergy, which is used for sharing the mouse and keyboard of server with number of clients.