I just noticed that synergy is in the repository. I installed and configured it and it seems to run fine.
For those who do not know: Synergy is a server-client-application that allows you to use your desktop-computers keyboard/mouse on a remote system. It also exchanges the copy-buffer between the two. You can compare it to a very light-weight VNC-setup, just that no video-data is being transfered. You configure your Pandora to be "beside your desktop" and as soon as you move your mouse "out of" your desktop (for example to the left), the mouse-pointer switches to the desktop of your Pandora and all keyboard-signals are sent there too. That way you can start applications there or work in a terminal-window within an X-environment. Everything you execute will run on the Pandora. You can not move running windows from one to another.
Note: You also can control your PC from the Pandora this way. For example for using it as remote-control for a video- or audio-player.
For more information and detailed configuration-instruction (e.g. for running synergy on MS Windows) check http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
Here is what i did:
- open a terminal and "sudo su" to become root
- "opkg install synergy" (Be sure to have enough space left, especially if you are booting from NAND (internal memory))
- create a file named ".synergy.conf" in your home-directory containing something like the following code with your favorite text-editor:
Do the same on your pc (install synergy and configure the above file). The homepage-documentation recommends to use the hostnames of the machine. This is the computer's network name on win32 and the name reported by the program "hostname" on Unix and OS X. Since i am using a locally configured setup for hostnames with static IPs, i also edited "/etc/hosts" as root and added a line for the remote computer. This is nothing more than the IP of the computer followed by the name you want to give it. Of course this does not make sense in a dynamically configured DNS-setup. There your DNS-server (e.g. Wlan-router) should know the names and i guess (i never personally set up a DNS so far) you can simply configure it there.
Once you configured these two files, simply start the server on your desktop-machine. You do this as normal user. I recommend to first run it in non-daemon-mode so you can see the output:
Then run the client on your Pandora specifying the servers-hostname (or IP):
If everything went right, then you should connect and can try moving the mousepointer out of your screen to the side that you configured. Try clicking and typing and have fun. If you do not manage to connect, then try to get help in the documentations or post here. Of course you can also add the server and client to the list of programms that automatically start on session-startup. However the server should (it doesn't have to) run first, because if the client does not find the server it will try again and again with increasing time-gaps in between, starting with a few seconds and going up to 1 minute as far as i have seen (check output of client). So you might have to wait that long until the client connects.
For those who do not know: Synergy is a server-client-application that allows you to use your desktop-computers keyboard/mouse on a remote system. It also exchanges the copy-buffer between the two. You can compare it to a very light-weight VNC-setup, just that no video-data is being transfered. You configure your Pandora to be "beside your desktop" and as soon as you move your mouse "out of" your desktop (for example to the left), the mouse-pointer switches to the desktop of your Pandora and all keyboard-signals are sent there too. That way you can start applications there or work in a terminal-window within an X-environment. Everything you execute will run on the Pandora. You can not move running windows from one to another.
Note: You also can control your PC from the Pandora this way. For example for using it as remote-control for a video- or audio-player.
For more information and detailed configuration-instruction (e.g. for running synergy on MS Windows) check http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
Here is what i did:
- open a terminal and "sudo su" to become root
- "opkg install synergy" (Be sure to have enough space left, especially if you are booting from NAND (internal memory))
- create a file named ".synergy.conf" in your home-directory containing something like the following code with your favorite text-editor:
Code:
section: screens
pandora-hostname:
pc-hostname:
end
section: links
pc-hostname:
left = pandora-hostname
pandora-hostname:
right = pc-hostname
endDo the same on your pc (install synergy and configure the above file). The homepage-documentation recommends to use the hostnames of the machine. This is the computer's network name on win32 and the name reported by the program "hostname" on Unix and OS X. Since i am using a locally configured setup for hostnames with static IPs, i also edited "/etc/hosts" as root and added a line for the remote computer. This is nothing more than the IP of the computer followed by the name you want to give it. Of course this does not make sense in a dynamically configured DNS-setup. There your DNS-server (e.g. Wlan-router) should know the names and i guess (i never personally set up a DNS so far) you can simply configure it there.
Once you configured these two files, simply start the server on your desktop-machine. You do this as normal user. I recommend to first run it in non-daemon-mode so you can see the output:
Code:
synergys -fThen run the client on your Pandora specifying the servers-hostname (or IP):
Code:
synergyc -f pc-hostnameIf everything went right, then you should connect and can try moving the mousepointer out of your screen to the side that you configured. Try clicking and typing and have fun. If you do not manage to connect, then try to get help in the documentations or post here. Of course you can also add the server and client to the list of programms that automatically start on session-startup. However the server should (it doesn't have to) run first, because if the client does not find the server it will try again and again with increasing time-gaps in between, starting with a few seconds and going up to 1 minute as far as i have seen (check output of client). So you might have to wait that long until the client connects.
