Sascha Retzki wrote: > On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 12:55:45PM +0000, Adam Gleave wrote: >> I've been looking at KVM's (on eBay mostly, for price reasons :)). >> What I really need is something that: >> >> 1. Will work on a variety of OS's (Linux, OpenBSD, *BSD, ...anything). > > 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. > This is my opinion what is happening there; however there is the effect > that the mouse needs 1-2 seconds to react on user input after you switched > back and stuff like that.
It is more complicated than that. >> OpenBSD being most important :) > > There used to be a remark about problems with KVMs on OpenBSD, I cannot find > them anymore, tho. I don't even know if they were fixed, I know there were > problems. http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq12.html#i386smouse (Sometimes I look at an article, and wonder, "WHY did I put it THERE?" That is one of those cases. Ok, I know why I put it there, but not sure why I expected you to find it) It is still very true. There are some KVM switches that work just fine with OpenBSD, some that work horribly, and some that work fine while you are testing things, then blow up spectacularly (i.e., past five screens of text on to chat with Theo looking on) after you put it all back together and started to trust the dang thing. (btw: CTRL-ALT-BackSpace is your friend when that happens. You still look silly, but it minimizes how silly) Some people have reported better results using switched USB cables, and someone once suggested using a PS/2 -> USB adapter, so the computer always sees its USB keyboard/mouse, and only the USB adapter has to worry about the switching. Experiment. I picked up some cheap $20 (on sale) "home-grade" four-port switches (with cables!) that seem to work PERFECTLY with OpenBSD (about their only positive feature), and I've got a relatively expensive eight port on my desk at work...which doesn't (so yes, I have a separate mouse for the OpenBSD system). Both made by the same manufacturer. Go figure. Nick.
