--On 01 June 2005 17:08 +0200, Sascha Retzki wrote:
Those thingies don't *really* need OS-support, tho the OS should be ok with the fact that those KVMs (or at least the two-three I used to see in action) switch the signals completely "away" from a computer, thus loosing voltage.
The keyboard and mouse are only attached to one PC at a time, the KVM often generates signals to the others.
I don't know if it's a common problem, but I have seen seen FreeBSD on an old Belkin OmniView SE where this emulated signal isn't good enough for the boot blocks to detect the keyboard (switching to serial console, unless configured otherwise).
I haven't tried it with OpenBSD, but it's something to test and be aware of (especially if it's in a box which might need to restart unattended). If an OS can have problems detecting a KVM-emulated keyboard, there's also a chance some obscure BIOS might also have problems.
With a mouse there can be some other problems (presumably more likely on an older KVM): they don't always work for wheels, and there might not be sufficient power for an optical mouse.
