Monitors

What I Use: Synergy

synergyLast post, I talked a bit about my new Multi Monitor set up.  I mentioned that I use a program called Synergy to handle using multiple machines with one keyboard and mouse.  It’s essentially a virtual KVM, only without the V, since everything has it’s own Video disrt play.

It’s not a free program, but it’s not expensive, and it’s well worth it if you use multiple machines in this manner.

The general gist of it’s use, one machine acts as a server, and other machines connect to it.  The server hosts the mouse and keyboard, and the configuration.  Out of the box, Synergy actually works kind of crappy with a multi monitor involved such as my set up.  The configuration is a simple drag and drop positioning grid, and it doesn’t care about how many monitors are on one system, it assumes one.

synergy_config

You can manually set up a more complex configuration pretty easily.  I’d recommend doing a basic set up and making sure everything is working well before delving into the complex realm.  I’ve found several tutorials online with complex formulas and jargon but the whole set up, in most cases, is a lot simpler.

Start off with your basic set up and save the configuration file.  Now, save it again with some sort of appended name like “edited” or “custom”.  This way you can always reload the original working configuration.  Also, you can save this configuration anywhere but ultimately the program may need to reload it so I would recommend saving it somewhere handy but out of the way, like Documents or even a folder in Documents.

Now, find the file you just saved and open it in notepad.  Find the section labeled “section:links”.  This is the meat of how the program knows where to transition.  It should look something like this:

section: links
pi:
down = Squall
Ixion:
right = Squall
Squall:
up = pi
left = Ixion
end

Notice the directions, up, down, left, right, these are the edges where transitions occur.  You can alter these to make them more precise by adding (x1,x2) to each entry, where x1 is the starting percentage across the screen and x2 is the ending percentage.

synergy_monitors

If you have some complicated positioning, you can futz out some math on the percentages by using the number of pixels /the number of pixels total, but if you have a fairly simple set up like mine, it’s not hard to generalize these percentages.  In my case, this becomes:

section: links
pi:
down(0,100) = Squall(33,66)
left(0,100) = Ixion(0,100)
Ixion:
down(0,100) = Squall(0,33)
right(0,100) = pi(0,100)
Squall:
up(0,33) = Ixion(0,100)
up(33,66) = pi(0,100)
end

Note, that (0,33) is the “first third” across the top of the total width (3 monitors).  The other transition is (33,66) or the second third.  If I had a third monitor on top, it would end up being (66,100), however since I don’t the mouse stays locked within the monitor on the right instead of transitioning anywhere.

With my original generic set up, any upward movement always went to “pi” and going off the left hand edge went to “Ixion”.  In the new set up, everything behaves as expected in a seamless up, down, and across fashion.

Oh, and it works on a Raspberry Pi!

Multi Monitor Mount

I just wanted to take a moment to share my new multi monitor set up.  Many years ago I was turned on to the idea of using two monitors at my previous job.  having the extra desktop space was great and we ended up adding a second monitor to a lot of the desktops in the office.

Five monitor stand

After building my home office PC, I ended up gathering a few more monitors second hand and eventually had a triple monitor set up at my desk.  I’ve been planning for a while to get a stand that would hold all of the monitors together and clean up desk space but kept putting it off.  When I finally set out to order a stand, I found I could get a 6 monitor stand for almost the same cost as the 3 monitor stand I was looking at, so I figured why not.

So the stand arrived, I used a drill and a hand saw to chop a slit in my desk to slide the mount into, and I went about mounting things.

Unfortunately, the monitor stand isn’t quite designed to fit in a corner, and my monitors are just just just too large to fit on it properly.  Fortunately, I noticed the arms are set up with a long part and a short part, on all four arms.  So I disassembled the arms on the top half and reassembled things so that each of the lower arms had two long bits, which was perfect for the lower monitors to fit together.

Back on an unfortunate note, this means that the upper arms are both really short.  I opted to just pull the one arm off and use just the two monitors on the above section.

This also means I have space to rotate the lower right hand monitor into a vertical alignment if I feel like it.

So why does one need so much screen real estate for.  I’ll admit, it’s probably overkill, and three is probably the most that is really necessary here.  The upper monitors are mostly used for peripheral uses.  The three lower monitors are all hooked to my desktop, I keep Facebook Messenger and Thunderbird (email, Usenet) on the rightmost one, the browser on the left one, and the center one is reserved for whatever the focus is, a game, Photoshop, video editing, sometimes the browser.

The upper center monitor is hooked to one of my Raspberry PiB2s and has XCHAT running connected to my ZNC server.  This is also the same Pi that I host a Minecraft server from.  I tried running Xchat off of the same PiB+ that runs the ZNC server but the lag made things unusable.  The B2 runs things way better than the B+.

The upper left monitor is still kind of undetermined.  It’s limited since it only has a VGA input on it for starters.  Once I get my CHIP with VGA adapter I may stick it on the back of the monitor.  For now I dug out an old Netbook and use it to monitor security cameras.  I’ll probably also use it to display a home automation dashboard if I ever get around to building such a thing with my Arduino boards.  It currently runs Windows 7, mostly because I haven’t been able to find any software on Linux to monitor multiple IP cameras.  The only one available isn’t free, which wouldn’t be a problem but it uses an asinine license system so it’s a reoccurring yearly cost and it’s not cheap.

I really refuse to pay for “license” style software that isn’t constantly providing some some sor tof regular upkeep/service.  A stand alone self run product really shouldn’t cost yearly, but that’s a rant for someplace else.

Everything is tied together using a really nice piece of software called Synergy.

On a technical note, each of the lower monitors is 21″ across the diagonal and the upper monitors are both 19″ across the diagonal.