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heatmiser 4 hours ago [-]
I solved the multi-computer-to-multi-monitor problem with a Level1Techs KVM[1]. The price (~$500 for the variant I purchased) initially gave me pause, but the longer I've had it, the happier I am with my decision.
It handles all the switching at the hardware level and thus has no perceptible lag for video or anything else. I'm able to connect a single set of peripherals, in my case, two monitors, a keyboard, a trackball, and a USB audio interface, to both my Linux desktop and a CalDigit Thunderbolt dock connected to my laptop. The L1T KVM has hotkeys[2] that let me switch between systems, with only a 1–2 second delay.
The benefit, for me, of this extra box now mounted under my desk is that when I upgrade my monitor, I only care about how good a display it is, not whether there's some perfect confluence of KVM, refresh rate, aspect ratio, display technology, etc. I find the monitor I want and let a separate IO routing layer.
I’m looking for a setup like this. I currently have a simple usb-c splitter that I use to switch my keyboard between the two. I bought a similar one for display ports but it doesn’t work super well, so I ditched it and just manually move the display port from my desktop to my caldigit.
They were both $20. The keyboard one works fine. I’d love to have a kvm like this but the price certainly gets gives me pause when I got halfway there for basically $20-$40.
Muromec 1 hours ago [-]
There is an actual KVM that does both (display and usb) for 25 eurobucks sold on the communist ecommerce website.
2 hours ago [-]
3 hours ago [-]
mcv 50 minutes ago [-]
I'm going to have to look into this. I've got two machines using the same monitor (indeed work macbook and home linux). It's a curved 4K Samsung Oddyssey of some sort, and I can either switch through the monitor's menu, or set it to switch to the machine that gave the most recent input. The latter sounds perfect, but unfortunately both options suck. The monitor is incredibly slow to respond to anything: turning on, opening the menu, switching input, whatever. It always takes a couple of seconds, sometimes forgets to turn on at all, and often when I do something on one machine, the other suddenly wakes up, presumably by the monitor. The setup is unpredictable, and I blame the monitor.
grahamburger 47 minutes ago [-]
I have a Samsung Ultrawide monitor. It allows for two simultaneous video input displayed on the screen at once, in either 50/50 or 66/33 split. Combined with Barrier for mouse-keyboard switching and keyboard integration and I can use both devices simultaneously on the same monitor, almost as though they were a single device.
space_ghost 6 hours ago [-]
I did something similar last year with a monitor without built-in KVM but with good DCC support (Ultrasharp U3417W) and Synergy [0].
I use Synergy as part of my desk setup already, but needed a way to view the UI of a normally headless machine. The solution I built was a small shell script that terminated the active Synergy session and started a new one with a different config file (so keyboard/mouse input would map to the normally-headless machine), and fired off a DCC command to the monitor to change its input. The same script ran with a different argument would switch back to the normal display/control configuration. This solution worked pretty well until I was able to retire the headless machine early this year.
I loved synergy back in 2005 when it was _actually_ open source! It was probably my first open source contribution! But then it was enshittified and made impossible to build from source in order to support the commercial dreams.
empiricus 4 hours ago [-]
does synergy works better now? 3 years ago, every week I would get into a situations where one machine was not connecting to the other, and I had to randomly restart synergy so maybe it connects. fun to do that 5 min before the meetings.
forsalebypwner 2 hours ago [-]
It's definitely very dependent on the stability of both machine's network.
I also recommend checking out the open source fork of Synergy, which is also compatible with Synergy clients https://github.com/deskflow/deskflow
empiricus 1 hours ago [-]
ty, will look at deskflow
clan 5 hours ago [-]
What a great idea. It should be obvious and easy but DDC commands are hard to find and should be documented better.
I have a Dell U4323QE in the office and look forward to trying this out. I wondered if it was the same DDC commands so I googled a little and found this gist (concerning DDM):
I much prefer simple DDC commands over using something like Synergy or Barrier. I think it is a much cleaner solution.
BrokenCogs 1 hours ago [-]
Wait why not just buy a usb switch? I switch between 4 computers using the same monitor, keyboard and mouse.
adrian_b 7 minutes ago [-]
Why buy a switch when almost all monitors have multiple video inputs and they can switch them internally.
The only difficulty is that as said in TFA, the DDC commands are typically very poorly documented by the monitor manufacturers, so most computer users are not aware of them.
GeorgeDewar 2 hours ago [-]
I love this approach, but a few years ago I tried it very unsuccessfully with my Xiaomi Mi 34" ultrawide.
By very unsuccessfully, I mean that the commands to change input didn't work. I can't remember if they did nothing or crashed the monitor, but subsequent investigation led me to realise I was lucky not to brick it, as some people found certain commands cause non-recoverable issues on that monitor!
So, I suggest caution in the form of maybe checking that others have successfully used DDC commands on your particular model.
For macs, if you're signed into the same Apple account on both, you can "share" the same keyboard and mouse across them.
It does tend to be finicky - sometimes it just refuses to connect, and won't tell me why, and sometimes it'll forget the arrangement. And it requires you to be signed into one account on two machines, which some people may not want to do on corporate laptops.
montag 3 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately, finicky isn’t acceptable when it comes to keyboard and mouse.
ndr42 4 hours ago [-]
Yes and then sometimes your mouse is gone (just to be found on some iPad display) :-/
seemaze 2 hours ago [-]
I use two computers displayed side-by-side with the picture-in-picture feature of a single ultra-wide monitor.
Input leap[0] is a great open source KVM software version of the deskhop which allows me to control both computers on the same monitor with the sam peripherals.
I do the same but with a usb-c dongle. For whatever reason my brain needs a hard reset when switching between tasks otherwise my productivity nose dives.
eleventen 2 hours ago [-]
I have a Dell U3225QE with a built-in KVM and 2 macs.
One connects with Thunderbolt only. The other connects with Display Port for video and USB-C for the rest of the built-in dock.
It's OK most of the time with the nipple switch. My one piece of advice is *avoid HDMI*. I learned after getting this monitor that the HDMI protocol is a petulant unstable little shit that does not tolerate renegotiation well. Get yourself a USB-C to DisplayPort cable.
timonoko 6 hours ago [-]
If you turn one computer display off as in "xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --off", the monitor automatically selects some other computer to display.
Thus I have 2 computers and 3 displays, and I can do sentences like "displays 13", which uses only displays 1 and 3 and sends ssh-command "displays 2" to the other computer.
chatmasta 5 hours ago [-]
Just dropping a note to say I’ve had the same monitor for a year and I absolutely love it. I don’t care about this seamless switching — I just use HDMI1 for Xbox, HDMI2 for my computer, and then swap hobby/work when needed. It’s also good motivation to turn off the work laptop when I’m done with the day.
The monitor is fantastic though. I’ve had no issues yet, knock on wood.
^F4::
Run C:\Users\YourNameHere\Documents\AutoHotkey\ControlMyMonitor /SwitchValue Primary 60 17 3
Return
Where the file path is where you've put ControlMyMonitor.exe, "Primary" means the main Windows display, the "60" means input select, and the "17" and "3" are the values you observe in ControlMyMonitor when each display you want to switch between is enabled.
You can now press Ctrl+F4 to toggle inputs.
iaresee 4 hours ago [-]
Oh nice! I've been doing this on the Mac side with BetterDisplay, but on the Windows side I couldn't find an equivalent and have had the awful Dell software installed to do it there. This'll let me dump the Dell software! Thanks!
connectsnk 6 hours ago [-]
Isn’t the answer buy a kvm switch? If yes this could have been really short
applfanboysbgon 6 hours ago [-]
> Conclusion
> And there you have it. A KVM solution that doesn’t require an external KVM device to pass inputs through, and a switch that can be triggered using a keyboard alone.
swiftcoder 6 hours ago [-]
Depends on what class of monitor you want to run it with. A KVM that can handle 4K 144hz VRR is... not cheap, if available at all.
giobox 2 hours ago [-]
> A KVM that can handle 4K 144hz VRR is... not cheap, if available at all
It's supported by the relatively old HDMI 2.1/DisplayPort 1.4 standards - it shouldn't be that hard to find a KVM that can do this.
duskwuff 5 hours ago [-]
"8K" KVMs are available on Amazon for under $100; they'll handle 4K@144 no problem.
rcoveson 4 hours ago [-]
No, the worst part of a KVM switch is the video signal switching. You want as few switches in the video signal path as possible and the higher bandwidth you need them to be the more expensive they're going to be. You're already paying for the one in your monitor, so taking advantage of that is the right solution.
IME even high-end KVM switches experience occasional signal interruption or, more often, failure to synchronize at all on output switch.
Do what OP did.
Vvector 6 hours ago [-]
He bought a $900 monitor that has a KVM built in
topspin 4 hours ago [-]
~$900, and it takes ~3 seconds to switch...
I'll pursue this when "they" decide to get real and make this not suck. Until then, I have sufficient alternatives.
I appreciate the writeup. It convinces me that integrated KVM stuff ~~ except for fewer wires ~~ isn't much better than the mess that's prevailed for years now, and I'm not missing much.
EvanAnderson 4 hours ago [-]
The ~3 second switch would definitely derail me.
Why does video input source switching suck so much?
Back in the old analog CRT days I could forgive the switching latency. With today's all-digital signal paths I feel like video input switching should be pretty close to instant.
Is the technology in a broadcast switcher really so exotic and expensive?
topspin 4 hours ago [-]
> Is the technology in a broadcast switcher really so exotic and expensive?
No. My characterization of the problem was precision flippancy; the demand for this is niche enough that optimizing for it is a low priority, so "they" simply don't. That failure is stack-wide; the specifications around display negotiation would need extension to manage the additional state necessary for the "agile" KVM use case, and then the hardware+firmware would need to exist and become cheap, somehow despite Imaginary Property laws, so that one could hope to find it in real products.
There is regulatory friction here as well: it would complicate power management. Not infeasibly so, but enough that unless a need appears of such import that it motivates people to dare to disturb that writhing ball of copulating tapeworms, it simply won't happen.
So don't hold your breath. Unless you're relatively young, you won't live to see it. More likely, some other paradigm will obviate the problem first.
csomar 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I read the whole article looking for any meat in there and there is none. I played with different setups as I, too, use both macos and linux. I remember doing a two screen setup where if you move the mouse to the edge of the linux screen, it appears on the macos one.
I guess everything old is new again?
applfanboysbgon 6 hours ago [-]
A two screen setup is not a one screen setup. I have a two screen mouse-edge setup and I was still interested to learn about being able to use a keyboard shortcut to control a monitor with a built-in KVM to switch between two computers on the same screen. That is, in fact, new to me.
dfxm12 3 hours ago [-]
Depends on your threshold for "fiddling". The author's is quite inclusive.
albert_e 5 hours ago [-]
I am just using RDP from one PC into another presently -- to solve this in a low complexity way. Tried a lot of approaches in the past -- none were reliable for me.
EvanAnderson 4 hours ago [-]
RDP works unreasonably well, given the price.
nkotov 2 hours ago [-]
I have a similar setup for my MBP + Windows Desktop. I ended up using a simple USB switcher for all the devices and just running two inputs and manually switching between screen inputs. One button press for USB switch, one source switch on monitor. If I need something from the other computer during the use, I just remote in.
vardalab 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah, this all sounds good in theory, but there's a lot of edge cases. For example, for me switching between Mac and Linux what often happens is that Linux just for some reason the it turns off the monitor port and it's black until I reboot and there was no easy way to get it back. This is while using fancy Dell monitors built-in KVM. Ultimately, I have settled on remote desktops as a more viable and quicker option.
jmuguy 4 hours ago [-]
Its amazing to me how annoying these problems can be and there's no real one size fits all solution. I have a desktop PC and macbook, and two monitors. I use a KVM and also switch inputs on the monitors themselves.
I tried very unsuccessfully to do something with DDC/CI when the KVM would switch between systems. The idea being when the OS detect the presence of the keyboard/mouse because the KVM had switched to them they'd send a change source command but DDC/CI is such a disaster in terms of support.
We need someone like Framework to make a "monitor for hackers" that actually has robust, well documented, DDC/CI support and I'd be all over it.
jijijijij 2 hours ago [-]
> We need someone like Framework to make a "monitor for hackers" that actually has robust, well documented, DDC/CI support and I'd be all over it.
No, no, no. They need to modify their laptops so I can use the laptop's monitor and keyboard with e.g. a RPi without networking. Using the laptop IO for headless computers flipping a switch, or better ad-hoc streaming into some virtual environment would be such a win!
marceldegraaf 4 hours ago [-]
I have my Windows gaming rig in a rack at home, and run Apollo [1] on it. Using that, I can game on any Apple TV (with an Xbox controller) or the MacBook (connected to a display/keyboard/mouse) anywhere in my home. With wired networking 60fps at 4K is no problem at all.
This would be easy to set up the other way around, too: having a gaming rig on your desk with Moonlight, and running Linux on another machine somewhere in the network with Apollo to host the development setup.
No KVM (or KVM-equipped monitor) or other special hardware needed.
I gave up on a hardware solution to this and currently just use Screen Sharing to "remote" into my personal machine from my work machine, which I guess only works because they're both macs, although VNC probably solves this in a cross platform way. I have an Apple studio monitor so built-in KVM isn't possible, although maybe there's a jailbreak for it since it has its own processor and firmware? I still just vastly prefer the quality of Apple displays so I optimize for that first.
Also, OT but I have the same keyboard as OP and love it :) I want to hack a TouchID key from the Magic Keyboard I bought into the chassis. But it can't traverse the Screen Sharing hack, so I do still think about this from time to time.
dllu 5 hours ago [-]
Does screen sharing actually have reasonable resolution and latency befitting of the Apple Studio Monitor?
Doohickey-d 4 hours ago [-]
On LAN (no internet, wired), it's quite decent. With e.g. Parsec, it's quite high image quality, low single digit latency, so quite usable.
mckn1ght 4 hours ago [-]
Not really, unfortunately, even on wired LAN latency is noticeable, but I'm just editing code so it's at least doable. Resolution isn't bad. I wouldn't recommend it for graphic work or gaming. The only benefit that isn't degraded is the nanotexture on the studio montor, haha.
sethammons 6 hours ago [-]
It never occurred to me that you can send commands across DDC to your monitor. Binding that to a key on the keyboard in different OSs to trigger the monitor's built in KVM is a nice touch. I only change between my computers a couple times a day else I'd be setting this up this evening
BadBadJellyBean 3 hours ago [-]
This is awesome. I chose my monitor among others because of the built in KVM switch. I always found it annoying that I had to use the navigation nipple to switch inputs. This is now in the past.
If someone wants to know I have an MSI MPG 491C QD-OLED.
ryandrake 6 hours ago [-]
This is great. The Holy Grail of work/personal computing setups IMO. Too bad it’s so expensive.
I wish a KVM switch was a standard component of normal priced monitors these days. Especially one that also routed through all your peripherals, speakers, and everything.
Leftium 3 hours ago [-]
I found a monitor supporting KVM for only $132. It's an MSI, but not sure if the model is available outside of Korea: MSI MD272XPW[1]
Most people are unaware that the should buy a monitor with USB and DP-Alt mode. The same people are also unaware that they should ensure the same for the laptop they are buying.
Lower prices are always nice. But such things can be found at reasonable prices. I think awareness is a larger problem.
I am happy enough with the built-in speakers. But I do agree that line level aux out on the back would be nice.
nickdothutton 6 hours ago [-]
I have a couple of Eizo EV3285, which have enough separate physical inputs for the 3 machines I use to drive them. Only real PITA is having to press the input selector on both. Must admit I wasn't even aware of DDC!
VimEscapeArtist 5 hours ago [-]
I use 2 computers without a KVM. My keyboard, mouse, and soundbar all support Bluetooth. All wired to the PC by default. When I switch to the Mac, I just flip each device to Bluetooth mode.
ZeWaka 5 hours ago [-]
Yep, similar - I just use a wired USB hub that can toggle between two outputs.
I just have the monitors auto-switch on (lack of) input when I put one machine to sleep. The single click buttons on the monitor also switch.
timeinput 6 hours ago [-]
I have a few boxes that I switch between, but for some software it's nicer that my "main machine" be on DVI, and everything else HDMI. I may have to look at some scripting option where if the keyboard / mouse disappear (KVM switched away) change the display to use the HDMI input.
I do worry that would just add more trouble / race conditions / issues around this stuff. I feel like nvidia + linux + monitors doing anything other than staying on + attached all the time causes some headaches.
bni 5 hours ago [-]
This is great, I have a monitor with built in KVM (CORSAIR XENEON 27QHD240 OLED)
m1ddc works fine on my Mac, but why isn't there a single multiplatform cli tool that can be ran on Mac/Linux/Windows?
I need a Windows one for this to be useful for me.
mdswanson 6 hours ago [-]
FYI that if you have the right kind of Dell monitor, you can download their Display Manager software to do the same thing (and more): https://www.dell.com/en-us/lp/ddpm
Selkirk 2 hours ago [-]
I bought the "right kind of Dell," for this purpose but ddpm is unusable for me as it slams CPU periodically.
a-dub 5 hours ago [-]
back in the '00s i used a hardware kvm that could be controlled by the keyboard with some weird key combo (~ ~ (1|2)? maybe?). these days i strongly prefer deskflow (oss version of synergy) for this sort of thing or just ordinary remote desktop for the secondary. (depends on the task, if you're just building for the secondary or reading email it doesn't really matter- but if you're developing interactive applications or you need to reboot a bunch or something, then having the physical hardware with a local head can help).
sam_lowry_ 5 hours ago [-]
I still use hardware KVMs. Tesmart is OKish, but fails within a couple years, usualy. AV Access is on par with it.
Level1Techs are the best but also cost double or triple.
tosti 5 hours ago [-]
Where I worked in the 00s, they had rack mountable kvm. The clients were just a small box with utp and the peripherals. A double press on ctrl opened a menu and you could choose a server. Neat.
a-dub 4 hours ago [-]
it was embedded/client land for embedded systems that were connected to tvs (had one of those on my desk too). i had a primary windows dev box for wrs tornado and e-mail and then a linux box for ci dev and build/release infra. the kvm also allowed me to switch to whatever engineering sample hw i had on my desk. fun times!
Brendinooo 5 hours ago [-]
I didn't know that DDC was a thing! Super cool.
6 hours ago [-]
abstractspoon 3 days ago [-]
Zero fiddling, but substantial financial outlay
swiftcoder 6 hours ago [-]
Any somewhat-modern monitor with multiple outputs should be able to do this. DDC support has been around for a while
bartvk 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah but this monitor also switches its internal USB hub to USB-C. Is that really standard behavior?
swiftcoder 4 hours ago [-]
For monitors with DisplayPort over USB-C, yes. The most common machine on the other end of that cable tends to be a MacBook, and nobody wants to run 2x usb-c cables from their MacBook to their monitor.
3 hours ago [-]
dominotw 3 hours ago [-]
i have the same setup with my dell but i would love to use usbc for linux too . just one wire each to either device.
IshKebab 5 hours ago [-]
You can do this with even less fiddling just by getting a KVM that supports video. There are reasonably priced ones that can even do 4K 60Hz. This also means you don't have to deal with monitors that don't implement input switching via DDC/CI (thanks LG).
clan 5 hours ago [-]
I did that at home. But I needed to try several KVMs until I found one which was stable. And I hate all the cables.
I agree that the industry hates its consumers and likes to mess things up. CEC never always quite the same. Not supported on many GPUs etc.
I do not want to appear to condone LG. But actually (sorry!) some supoort[0] it using DDC side channels (0x50 rather that 0x51). But I agree it is painful. Yet I prefer it over my cable spaghetti.
Last time I looked (which was some years ago), I couldn't find any that support display over Thunderbolt without resorting to DisplayLink.
threetonesun 5 hours ago [-]
it's much more reasonable and trivial on lower quality monitors but if one of the two PCs is for gaming you're going to want 4k at at least 120Hz which, last I checked, didn't exist (or was very expensive). You also might have a hard time finding one that takes DisplayPort in, which is preferable for Linux.
Personally I just run the USB devices into a $5 USB A/B switch and manually change the inputs on the monitor.
I've got one (MA270S) hooked to a MBP (recommended, if you don't want to spend the dosh on an Apple display), but I haven't yet dug out another Mac to test the KVM. Considering that it's a $900 monitor, like the one in TFA, it damned well better work as advertised.
It handles all the switching at the hardware level and thus has no perceptible lag for video or anything else. I'm able to connect a single set of peripherals, in my case, two monitors, a keyboard, a trackball, and a USB audio interface, to both my Linux desktop and a CalDigit Thunderbolt dock connected to my laptop. The L1T KVM has hotkeys[2] that let me switch between systems, with only a 1–2 second delay.
The benefit, for me, of this extra box now mounted under my desk is that when I upgrade my monitor, I only care about how good a display it is, not whether there's some perfect confluence of KVM, refresh rate, aspect ratio, display technology, etc. I find the monitor I want and let a separate IO routing layer.
--
[1]: https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/14-kvm-switch-d...
[2]: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/official-l1techs-kvm-faq-ult...
They were both $20. The keyboard one works fine. I’d love to have a kvm like this but the price certainly gets gives me pause when I got halfway there for basically $20-$40.
I use Synergy as part of my desk setup already, but needed a way to view the UI of a normally headless machine. The solution I built was a small shell script that terminated the active Synergy session and started a new one with a different config file (so keyboard/mouse input would map to the normally-headless machine), and fired off a DCC command to the monitor to change its input. The same script ran with a different argument would switch back to the normal display/control configuration. This solution worked pretty well until I was able to retire the headless machine early this year.
[0] https://symless.com/synergy
I also recommend checking out the open source fork of Synergy, which is also compatible with Synergy clients https://github.com/deskflow/deskflow
I have a Dell U4323QE in the office and look forward to trying this out. I wondered if it was the same DDC commands so I googled a little and found this gist (concerning DDM):
https://gist.github.com/nebriv/cb934a3b702346c5988f2aba5ee39...
Which has the very useful comment:
https://gist.github.com/nebriv/cb934a3b702346c5988f2aba5ee39...
Which states:
#define LUMINANCE 0x10 #define CONTRAST 0x12 #define VOLUME 0x62 #define MUTE 0x8D #define PBP 0xE9 #define SWAP_USB 0xE7 #define SWAP_INPUT 0xE5 #define INPUT 0x60 #define SUB_INPUT 0xE8 #define INPUT_ALT 0xF4 // alternate address, used for LG exclusively? #define STANDBY 0xD6
I much prefer simple DDC commands over using something like Synergy or Barrier. I think it is a much cleaner solution.
The only difficulty is that as said in TFA, the DDC commands are typically very poorly documented by the monitor manufacturers, so most computer users are not aware of them.
By very unsuccessfully, I mean that the commands to change input didn't work. I can't remember if they did nothing or crashed the monitor, but subsequent investigation led me to realise I was lucky not to brick it, as some people found certain commands cause non-recoverable issues on that monitor!
So, I suggest caution in the form of maybe checking that others have successfully used DDC commands on your particular model.
https://github.com/rockowitz/ddcutil/issues/153
Deskhop has been a lifesaver https://github.com/hrvach/deskhop
It does tend to be finicky - sometimes it just refuses to connect, and won't tell me why, and sometimes it'll forget the arrangement. And it requires you to be signed into one account on two machines, which some people may not want to do on corporate laptops.
Input leap[0] is a great open source KVM software version of the deskhop which allows me to control both computers on the same monitor with the sam peripherals.
[0]https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap
One connects with Thunderbolt only. The other connects with Display Port for video and USB-C for the rest of the built-in dock.
It's OK most of the time with the nipple switch. My one piece of advice is *avoid HDMI*. I learned after getting this monitor that the HDMI protocol is a petulant unstable little shit that does not tolerate renegotiation well. Get yourself a USB-C to DisplayPort cable.
Thus I have 2 computers and 3 displays, and I can do sentences like "displays 13", which uses only displays 1 and 3 and sends ssh-command "displays 2" to the other computer.
The monitor is fantastic though. I’ve had no issues yet, knock on wood.
You can add this .ahk script to run at startup:
Where the file path is where you've put ControlMyMonitor.exe, "Primary" means the main Windows display, the "60" means input select, and the "17" and "3" are the values you observe in ControlMyMonitor when each display you want to switch between is enabled.You can now press Ctrl+F4 to toggle inputs.
> And there you have it. A KVM solution that doesn’t require an external KVM device to pass inputs through, and a switch that can be triggered using a keyboard alone.
It's supported by the relatively old HDMI 2.1/DisplayPort 1.4 standards - it shouldn't be that hard to find a KVM that can do this.
IME even high-end KVM switches experience occasional signal interruption or, more often, failure to synchronize at all on output switch.
Do what OP did.
I'll pursue this when "they" decide to get real and make this not suck. Until then, I have sufficient alternatives.
I appreciate the writeup. It convinces me that integrated KVM stuff ~~ except for fewer wires ~~ isn't much better than the mess that's prevailed for years now, and I'm not missing much.
Why does video input source switching suck so much?
Back in the old analog CRT days I could forgive the switching latency. With today's all-digital signal paths I feel like video input switching should be pretty close to instant.
Is the technology in a broadcast switcher really so exotic and expensive?
No. My characterization of the problem was precision flippancy; the demand for this is niche enough that optimizing for it is a low priority, so "they" simply don't. That failure is stack-wide; the specifications around display negotiation would need extension to manage the additional state necessary for the "agile" KVM use case, and then the hardware+firmware would need to exist and become cheap, somehow despite Imaginary Property laws, so that one could hope to find it in real products.
There is regulatory friction here as well: it would complicate power management. Not infeasibly so, but enough that unless a need appears of such import that it motivates people to dare to disturb that writhing ball of copulating tapeworms, it simply won't happen.
So don't hold your breath. Unless you're relatively young, you won't live to see it. More likely, some other paradigm will obviate the problem first.
I guess everything old is new again?
I tried very unsuccessfully to do something with DDC/CI when the KVM would switch between systems. The idea being when the OS detect the presence of the keyboard/mouse because the KVM had switched to them they'd send a change source command but DDC/CI is such a disaster in terms of support.
We need someone like Framework to make a "monitor for hackers" that actually has robust, well documented, DDC/CI support and I'd be all over it.
No, no, no. They need to modify their laptops so I can use the laptop's monitor and keyboard with e.g. a RPi without networking. Using the laptop IO for headless computers flipping a switch, or better ad-hoc streaming into some virtual environment would be such a win!
This would be easy to set up the other way around, too: having a gaming rig on your desk with Moonlight, and running Linux on another machine somewhere in the network with Apollo to host the development setup.
No KVM (or KVM-equipped monitor) or other special hardware needed.
1: https://github.com/ClassicOldSong/Apollo
https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/f86e3770
https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/49bc3e67
Also, OT but I have the same keyboard as OP and love it :) I want to hack a TouchID key from the Magic Keyboard I bought into the chassis. But it can't traverse the Screen Sharing hack, so I do still think about this from time to time.
If someone wants to know I have an MSI MPG 491C QD-OLED.
I wish a KVM switch was a standard component of normal priced monitors these days. Especially one that also routed through all your peripherals, speakers, and everything.
The monitor with the specs I wanted was $201[2]
[1]: https://prod.danawa.com/info/?pcode=29877128
[2]: https://prod.danawa.com/info/?pcode=74545976
Lower prices are always nice. But such things can be found at reasonable prices. I think awareness is a larger problem.
I am happy enough with the built-in speakers. But I do agree that line level aux out on the back would be nice.
I just have the monitors auto-switch on (lack of) input when I put one machine to sleep. The single click buttons on the monitor also switch.
I do worry that would just add more trouble / race conditions / issues around this stuff. I feel like nvidia + linux + monitors doing anything other than staying on + attached all the time causes some headaches.
m1ddc works fine on my Mac, but why isn't there a single multiplatform cli tool that can be ran on Mac/Linux/Windows?
I need a Windows one for this to be useful for me.
Level1Techs are the best but also cost double or triple.
I agree that the industry hates its consumers and likes to mess things up. CEC never always quite the same. Not supported on many GPUs etc.
I do not want to appear to condone LG. But actually (sorry!) some supoort[0] it using DDC side channels (0x50 rather that 0x51). But I agree it is painful. Yet I prefer it over my cable spaghetti.
[0] https://github.com/rockowitz/ddcutil/wiki/Switching-input-so...
Personally I just run the USB devices into a $5 USB A/B switch and manually change the inputs on the monitor.
https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/home/ma270s.html
https://www.benq.com/en-us/knowledge-center/knowledge/one-se...
I've got one (MA270S) hooked to a MBP (recommended, if you don't want to spend the dosh on an Apple display), but I haven't yet dug out another Mac to test the KVM. Considering that it's a $900 monitor, like the one in TFA, it damned well better work as advertised.