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Multiple Rasp Pi's controlled by one wireless keyboard/mouse
Brucelee41042
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm putting together a "wall of screens" for our operations center build-out here in a couple of weeks. We're going to have six, 42" or 46" lcd's, three on top of three. I am going to use a rasp pi for each screen. They will be displaying things like weather apps, and a few webpages. I've tested them to work with power from the usb from the tv themselves. I'm going to go with a wireless lan adapter, and possibly a bluetooth as well (maybe a combo). What I need advice on is how to manage each of these devices with one keyboard/mouse combo. I know I could just buy six keyboard/mouse combos (wireless or bluetooth) and just label them one for each screen. Or just have one and hook the adapter up to whatever screen I need to mess with. But these screens are going in our 24/7 ops center, and I want to make the management of these as easy as possible. I just want to see if anyone has any ideas on how to get this to work with just one.
Brucelee41042 on
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817403060
Software approach:
Install VNC Server on each pi, and remote in from a PC with VNC Viewer
Personally I'd just remote in with terminal.
Satans..... hints.....
Synergy is a software solution, where you can pretend all your monitors are hooked up to just 1 computer, instead of 6 computers. That is, you can seamlessly move the cursor from one screen to the next, and whatever monitor the cursor is on, that's the computer that gets sent mouse clicks/key presses. I've been using Synergy at work for years, for 2 computers and 3 monitors, with just 1 keyboard/mouse.
But you still need that KVM switch. Every now and then, a software mouse/keyboard just doesn't cut it - the initial setup of Synergy is one of those cases - so you need the KVM to physically switch the keyboard/mouse under those situations. Note that Synergy is far more intuitive to use than a KVM, which is why the KVM is the backup method of interaction.
The difference between VNC vs Synery is that VNC is a server solution, while Synery is a desktop solution.
That is, VNC assumes you have a separate machine, like a laptop, to administer the other 6 raspberry pi boxes. To administer all 6 pi boxes at the same time, you end up having 6 separate VNC sessions opened up on your laptop.
On the other hand, Synery assumes the 6 raspberry pi boxes are sitting on your desk, so the better paradigm is for all 6 boxes to behave as if they were a single box.