Not sure how much help I can be of here - but like @FeRDNYC - I am a huge fan boy of this product - been using it nearly 10 years… mostly used the free versions, but I was using it in “anger” at work in 2018, so shelled out for a pro license… It’s a great product - but it does have some annoyances that irk me…
e.g. it nags and nags about not being registered/licensed, with no grace period before hand, when you install a new client, and then when you do license the client machine, it IMMEDIATELY turns on TLS encryption, and if you’re not careful, it will stop working on that client, if you’re not using TLS on the server (and I don’t because I don’t care, because everything’s on the same LAN, so if someone’s on my LAN already, snooping on Synergy packets is the LEAST of my worries!)…
I use it across a bunch of things - mostly Linux to Linux - but at work I also do Windows to Linux (with Linux as the server)… works on my Raspberry Pi 4 (the company Symless did a binary for arm64 for NVidia Shield users, that works on Raspbian arm64)… One platform the “official” binaries don’t install on is NTC CHIP armhf running Debian 8, but I can just install the 1.4 binaries from Debian, and use a shell script to fire up the client… Also tried it out on Mac too, but don’t keep a Mac for everyday use…
There’s one platform I’d really like to have it on - Android on Samsung DeX… people have gotten it to work on Linux on DeX, but Samsung killed that off earlier this year… there’s no DeX aware Synergy client…
One solution I found was some Android app called “ShareKey” (or something like that) that could talk to a Linux “server” product called “Across” over bluetooth, but could never get it to pair - so gave up.
Right now the solution I’m using, alongside Synergy across three Linux desktops (and sometimes up to SIX), is a Logitech Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse that can switch between host computers, the keyboard supports up to three, the mouse up to two… So when I want to type on the DeX session on a 27" monitor, I just “click” the keyboard and mouse over to “host 2”, not as easy as Synergy, but it’s workable…
Keyboard : Logitech K380
Mouse : Logitech M585/M590 *
I’ve also got a Lenovo "ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II " on order, which also supports switching across host computers…
- Logitech M585/M590 mouse also supports a Logitech software thing called “Flow” which looks neat (and effectively does what Synergy does, and probably more) - but I think it’s mostly Windows based, with a possible Mac client too, but nothing for us impoverished Linux users (or Android).
Note - here’s the bash script I use to start up Synergy Client on my NTC CHIP computers (I’ve got two around my desk) :
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# stop / start user service
PROG=$(basename $0)
PIDO=synergyc
if [ "$#" -lt 1 ] ; then
echo "need argument..."
echo "like on or off"
exit 1
fi
SINCITY=10.1.1.62
STATUS=$1
check_it () {
case $STATUS in
on|ON|N|n)
ACTION=start
synergyc 10.1.1.62
;;
off|of|OFF|F|f)
ACTION=stop
pkill synergy synergyc
;;
*)
echo "need on|ON|N|n or off|of|OFF|F|f"
exit 1
;;
esac
}
check_it
Where “sincity=10.1.1.62” is the LAN IP address of my Synergy Server.
Once upon a time, I would sometimes run Synergy Server from a shell script with a text config file, but those days are long gone… but here’s the config file I’d pass to the server daemon :
section: screens
ymir:
veles:
framebuesa:
ziu:
end
section: links
ymir:
left = veles
right = ziu
veles:
right = ymir
left = framebuesa
ziu:
left = ymir
framebuesa:
right=veles
end