[geeks] KVM revisited

Tue Oct 2 12:41:22 CDT 2007

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 12:24:43 -0400
"Jonathan Katz" <jon at jonworld.com> wrote:

> I have a two-port IOGEAR kvm (USB/VGA) on my desk here at the office.

...which seem to work better than DVI.

> It's hooked between my Ultra 45 and my HP nc6000's docking station. I have a
> Sun USB keyboard/mouse.
> 
> The Ultra 45 sometimes has a hard time finding the keyboard and mouse when
> switching back and forth. Not sure why. This can be fixed by using a USB hub
> between the KVM and the Ultra 45. It seems to be Ultra 45 specific. I have a

[ snip ]

In other words: USB sucks.  USB is one of the worst designed bus solutions
ever.  Yes, we need something like it, but everyone has screwed it up so bad
it is a PITA more often than not.

Oh well, it's nice when it works... :)

The real showstopper right now for me is that the only DVI KVM that seems to
work fairly well (the IOGear/Atem units) will not work with nVidia USB ports.

It is starting to look like this may be an unsolvable problem.

It's such a simple thing...

> I have my desk setup such that my laptop is in its docking station but open.
> This forces my monitor to be the external monitor on the laptop. Hooray for
> real-estate! If the laptop isn't active on the KVM during boot the KVM
> emulates/'sends back info to the system that the external monitor is only
> 1024x768. When I switch back to the laptop I then wind up having to reset
> the resolution on the PC and all is well again.

Hmmm... that's not great, but livable I guess.

I wonder... maybe there is a way in Windows to force the resolution to be
what I want, EDID info be damned.

I know I can do it with Linux.

The two computers will be a Mac and a PC.  The PC will run Windows for games,
and experimental OSs, mostly UNIX, for development work.  It's the one most
likely to change a lot, which is why I worry about KVM limits and USB.

Of course, as I said, it has an nVidia chipset, which seems to cause grief
for a lot of KVMs, especially IOGear.

Damnnation....

-- 
shannon           | I wish life was not so short. Languages take such a time, 
                  | and so do all the things one wants to know about. 
                  |        -- J. R. R. Tolkien