x2vnc

Well, what the heck is this..

I have a Linux Desktop at home and one of my friend has left his laptop with me and it is lying with me for a while.. Now I got weird idea.. Can I control the two boxes with same mouse and key board instead of switching keyboard and mouse every time I wanted to switch the computer?

End objective is.. I will use a mouse and keyboard pair attached to desktop but when drag the mouse pointer to one edge of the screen (any) the pointer should move to the laptop and I should be able to control that one..

Tech specs: Desktop with fedora 11 on it.. and a laptop with vista on it.. and here are the steps.. and both are connected by internal LAN..

• Install x2vnc with following command on fedora 11 Linux box.. sudo yum install x2vnc
• Install vncserver on the windows box. You can download a free vncserver from realvnc. Download a server+viewer executable. While installing, don't opt for running vncserver as a service.. until and unless you are interested in running the server every time you boot your windows box..
• If you have a firewall installed on the windows machine (machine with vnc server on it) enable access to the port 5900 tcp and udp (you will understand more once you digg firewall for details)
• Fire up the vncserver and choose a password to control the access (on windows box)
• Fire the following command on Linux terminal x2vnc -resurface [ip address of windows box]:0 *no need to use the brackets.
  

n you are in..

now see mouse pointer moving from one screen to the other.. for a better effect keep the laptop right to your Linux desktop monitor.

Important notes:

• You can only use the mouse and key board attached to Linux box(more precisely X server)
• It is not a traditional extended desktop where you use two monitors (and one computer) and on pair of keyboard and mouse. It is like controlling too computers with one set of input devices..

ps: my friend suggested me to write everything here.. instead of using two blogs.. so.. have fun!