The Author – Bart Busschots
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Nov
19
Synergy on OS X – the easy way
Filed Under Computers & Tech, System Administration on November 19, 2005 at 8:40 pm
If you have multiple machines on your desk and you are fed up of having a mess of keyboards and mice all over the place then Synergy is just the thing you need. What makes Synergy even better is that it works cross-platform so you can share a single keyboard and mouse between Linux, OS X, any Unix and even crappy old Windows!
To find out more about installing synergy on non-OS X platforms or
about the practicalities of setting up a Synergy server checkout
Synergy’s home page: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
The synergy home page allows you to download binaries for OS X but that package literally gives you just the executable file for the server and client and nothing more. If you want Synergy to be easier to use and install on OS X don’t get it from the Synergy website, get Synergy KM instead.
SynergyKM gives you a nice Synergy icon on the Menu Bar to allow you to easily see and change Synergy’s state (see screen first shot below). SynergyKM also adds an extra panel to your System Preferences to allow you to configure Synergy both as a client and a server (see second screen shot).
You can get SynergyKM here: http://software.landryhetu.com/synergy/
Addendum – 24-11-05
For some reason when you are using Synergy to connect your Mac to another keyboard and mouse and you have a hot-corner set up to lock the screen it doesn’t work while Synergy is on. If you turn-off synergy it works fine. for the last week I’ve been turning off Synergy each time I wanted to lock my computer and that’s just not ideal at all so I did some Googling on the matter and found a good solution.
You can get a padlock icon to appear in your Menu Bar and when you click on that one of the options in the menu is "Lock Screen" (see first figure below). This will allow you to lock your screen even while using Synergy. Getting this padlock is a little counter intuative but here goes:
- Open the "Keychain Access" program in your Applications/Utilities folder
- Open the prefferences for this app (Keychain Access -> Preferences)
- I nthe "General" pane check the checkbox labled "Show Status in Menu Bar"
Simple as that!
[…] DeskLampX Redux from developer Alf, listener Larry’s workaround to Parallels installation when you need to insert a second disk, Synergy gui and review from listener Bart, michaelharvee.com on Here’s How to Talk podcast, Ian and Allison battle it out over the need for anti-virus on the Mac, listener Leonard’s suggestions on using Sidenote from chatelp.org, SightSpeed from sightspeed.com for free cross-platform video chat, review of 8 wiki’s from wikimedia.org, tutorial on how to put YouTube video on your iPod, Time Warner gets two points. […]
I had Synergy up and running between my main Windows desktop and an old, old Windows laptop I used for terminal services connections. I got a used iBook G3 this week and had been wanting to get the same functionality back. Truly appreciate this entry! Thanks!
[…] long time ago I discussed an easy way to run Synergy on OS X. This is a good solution if you want to use a single keyboard and mouse to control multiple […]
I don’t see how this eliminates the need for the mac to have a mouse and keyboard. You still need to login with the mac mouse and keyboard. If you have a multi-user system, then SynergyKM is almost useless. I have been banging my head against the wall to get synergy working on the login screen to. The instructions of the synergy site only work occasionally. I have been reduced to sshing to the mac to start up synergy after logout. 🙁 Anyone have a good solution?
@doki_pen:
Actually no, there is a way to setup synergy server or client to start up when your computer starts up it takes quite a bit of messing with the OS but there are walkthroughs all over the place online… just look for it and you’ll find it I believe there’s even one on the synergy website
[…] to set up under Mac OS X Leopard, but luckily there are a couple of GUI:s out there. This guide by Bart Busschots – Synergy on OS X – the easy way will […]