[Discuss] share keyboard/video/mouse with 2 desktops

[johnhall2.0 at gmail.com (John Hall)]

If you are using *one monitor* use VNC, or better, RDP or XDMCP and run one
computer as more or less headless or semi-headless with a back up keyboard
and mouse and plugged into another interface port of your monitor.
(obviously using ssh / encryption)

 second display + synergy is much better.

Synergy
A tv/monitor that includes a remote can be ok otherwise the user interface
to switch between inputs on monitors is terrible and slow.
You could use synergy but it's not easy to use a single monitor. That is
not it's target use case. Synergy is for multiple monitors - one or more
per PC but one keyboard and mouse.
You roll the mouse and keyboard input among displays, according to a map
you define in it's graphic interface.

2 screens with synergy can be flexible
In a two screen setup you can when necessary go dual screen and use input
switching  and still direct input between computers with synergy.
Also note that a laptop screen can be used next to a desktop display if you
have the right kind of stand.

I use Synergy extensively.  I recommend that you install Synergy directly
from it's project page and use exactly the same version on all systems.
The main project now incorporates a good user interface that is the same on
Windows, Mac and Linux.
If you contribute any arbitrary amount you can get a premium license which
allows you to use encryption built in, a useful feature.

Windows - Linux integration
On Windows I recently discovered "Chocolatey" package manager for windows
and ConEmu, a much better interface to terminals with tabs and
customization short cuts.
Conemu + ssh from cygwin you get a very decent terminal login from windows
to linux.

I consider all the above a better solution than a 'soho' KVM. All of them
I've tried over the years have been unreliable and high quality models are
priced so that you really should consider a second screen and Synergy. It's
way way better.

Audio ( for whatever setup you choose)
It can be very useful to string the output sound of one machine into the
input of the other one.  It would be an interesting project to get pulse to
work across systems set up like this. As far as I know as it is you will
have to use the audio controls on both computers and your screen to get the
sound set up but this is worth it if you might miss a message or run
long-running processes or monitoring for which an alert at the end would be
useful.