2 laptops, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse

August 10, 2008 9:02 AM

2 laptops (Mac, fwiw) 1 keyboard/mouse. How best to make this work?

I've got two Macintosh laptops, one from work, and my personal machine, and I'd like some way to be able to work both of them from a single external keyboard/mouse pair. What are my options for doing this?

posted by gen to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Synergy is supposed to let you accomplish this. I haven't personally tried it, though.
posted by odinsdream at 9:15 AM on August 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

I've heard some people have seen limitations when Synergy is used on Mac (I don't have a source for this thought). I think you may want teleport instead. I haven't tried either option though.
posted by eisenkr at 9:18 AM on August 10, 2008

I use teleport, and it will work well for this. It does require that both computers be on the same network and that both be on, though.
posted by wyzewoman at 9:21 AM on August 10, 2008

Is there a hardware switch that can do this or is software my only option?
posted by gen at 9:30 AM on August 10, 2008

You could use a cheap KVM without the V.

This comes up in a search. I don't know anything about this particular product.
posted by tomierna at 9:34 AM on August 10, 2008

I've used synergy on 2 PCs and it's pretty slick.
posted by signal at 9:42 AM on August 10, 2008

Nthing Synergy. I've used it across Mac/PC/Linux and never had problems.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:45 AM on August 10, 2008

KVMs suck badly. Synergy is better than any KVM unless you truly need console access. If teleport is a better synergy than synergy, then go with that.
posted by b1tr0t at 10:52 AM on August 10, 2008

I'd also not recommend KVMs for this - they can be problematic with USB devices.
posted by odinsdream at 10:59 AM on August 10, 2008

I use Screen Sharing to do this. Just turn it on via System Preferences, select the computer you want to control in the Finder and then click the "share screen" button.
posted by rglasmann at 7:07 PM on August 10, 2008

I'd also recommend synergy. I've used it between two Macs and between a Mac and a Linux box. I recall it involving some minor faffing around with text config files, though, which makes some people want to run in the other direction. I think the extent of the configuration was putting in the screen dimensions and how you want them placed in relation to each other.

Also you'll probably want to create a little AppleScript to launch the command-line synergy app for you, so you dont have to take a trip to the Terminal every time you want to use it.
posted by DLWM at 4:16 PM on September 2, 2008