Ok, let me explain first what it is.. Synerygy2 is a way to share multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse. No, it’s not a KVM replacement.. Synergy2 replaces only the keyboard and mouse, you’ll need to have a monitor attached to each machine on your desk. This is actually a plus. In the photo below you’ll see my working area at the office… I’ve labelled which each runs for an OS and below that the names of the computers (click to see the full size image)
The keyboard and mouse is actually attached to the Ubuntu machine, in other words that’s the “server”. The XP and Windows 7 machines are “clients”. One thing to consider with Synergy is that it’s not secure. It does send everything you type in plain text over the network. This can be avoided by tunnelling the connection over something like SSH. Perhaps I’ll cover that later. Synergy2 isn’t new, it’s been around a very long time.
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel or try to take any limelight from those that have already posted great articles on how to set it up, the best information can be found from the Synergy2 website itself.
What I’m posting about is really how to fix a problem that I’m sure others might have encountered. Right.. so the problem is this. As I’ve said, the server is on Ubuntu. Naturally the “Windows key” on Ubuntu has no natural meaning to the OS, it’s just another key and not mapped to anything out of the box. The problem I’ve had is that while using Synergy the “Windows Key” didn’t work on the Ubuntu machine even though I’d remapped it to do things, such as Win + T to open a new xterm, Win + R to open the Run Command Dialog (basically making it operate a bit like Windows). the fix for this was a change in the $HOME/.synergy.ini file on the Ubuntu machine. The weird thing was that when move the mouse to the XP machine the Windows key did what it should, however on the Windows 7 it wouldn’t work.
Right, so what was the fix? Here is my .synergy.ini file
section: screens burma: scotland: meta = super rambler: meta = super end
section: links burma: left = scotland right = rambler scotland: right = burma left = rambler rambler: left = burma right = scotland end
section: options screenSaverSync = true end
The important lines above are the “meta = super”. Under Ubuntu the Windows Key is called “meta”. This tells Synergy when the focus is on the windows machines to map the “meta” key to the “super” key, or in other words the Windows key. Once that was changed and synergys was restarted all was good again.
I’m posting this for anyone else that might have a problem with the windows key not working under synergy with Linux/Ubuntu/Unix machines and windows machines, but also as a reminder to myself should I forget how I fixed it I’d been through this exercise about 4 years ago but having rebuilt that machine I couldn’t for the life of me recall how I fixed it .. well, now that I’ve blogged about it I’ll at least have one good place to go and find the answer again
It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged about anything meaningful. It’s not for the lack of anything to blog about, just more about my lack of ambition really.
In July I attended WordCampUK 2009 held in Caerdydd, Cymru (Cardiff, Wales). I was going to blog about this, but having read the huge number of postings by others that attended the event (A decent search), I figured there was nothing more that I could write to equal or better what others had already said. I will say that it was an awesome weekend though! Met loads of great people and even participated in the #Wordhack – Mobile Kubrick Theme project.
In July I also got a new phone, the Nokia N97. While it’s a very slick phone, it’s far from being without faults and bugs. To be completely honest, I’ve not been surprised by this, Nokia has made it a business mission it seems to release stunning devices that were only half thought out and loosely hacked up and released, clearly done late on a Friday afternoon after everyone had been out for a pub lunch lunch earlier in the day. For it’s flag ship phone it’s a pretty piss poor showing. Think I’m being too hard on it? See here “N97 Sucks”, “N97 Bugs”, “N97 is crap”. To contrast this however, “N97 is great”. Over all I really really love the device and it’s huge potential, but that is overshadowed by Nokia’s classic lackadaisical approach to building phones of late.
What else is new… I blogged recently about Lisa losing her first tooth… well it looks like another one is fixing to fall out soon. This is also the bottom one next to the one that fell out last month. Hehe poor kid will have a big hole in her smile for a while I think. There’s no sign yet of the new tooth showing up either.
Holiday’s… not really planned much this summer due the appalling weather we’ve been having this year. Typically British is the common phrase you’ll hear people mention. Loads of rain and grey/black skies. I have however booked a week off in August and we’re hoping to get out and do at least a couple days of camping. I’ve found a place in Suffolk that looks nice. Loads of woods to go walking through and they allow camp fire, which is very rare here. That would be nice for the kids to sit by the fire and we’ll take some marshmallows for them to roast over the fire too. We’ve done that before but it was over the BBQ, lets face it, there’s no competition between marshmallows over a BBQ or a camp fire!.
Not really much else to blog about right now. I’ll close off this posting for the time being. I hope to do more frequent blog postings, but then I’ve said that several times in the past and #failed at it
Ok, it’s not a full location detection as such.. I use my laptop (Ubuntu 9.04) both at home and work, as well as other places. The problem that I had was related to how SAMBA was configured. At home I have one workgroup name and at work I want the machine to appear in the company domain. But also, while out and about in the big bad world I don’t want SAMBA on at all, no need to share anything with anyone.
So, to over come this and correct it at boot time I’ve come up with the simple script below. The only other thing you need to do is prepare a couple of smb.conf files to suit the locations you’ll be in. I have 2 smb.conf files, one for HOME and one for WORK. I run the script from /etc/rc.local so it runs when I should have networking fully up and running.
Here is the script:
#!/bin/bash
HOME=YOUR_HOME_GW_IP
WORK=YOUR_WORK_GW_IP
GW=`route -n | grep ^0.0.0.0| awk '{print $2}'`
if [ $GW = $WORK ]; then
#echo "You're at work"
cp /etc/samba/smb.conf.WORK /etc/samba/smb.conf
/etc/init.d/samba restart
elif [ $GW = $HOME ]; then
#echo "You're at home"
cp /etc/samba/smb.conf.HOME /etc/samba/smb.conf
/etc/init.d/samba restart
else
#echo "You're somewhere else"
/etc/init.d/samba stop
fi
Pretty simple really. Hope others will find it useful.
Right, well Easter is actually over, but I’m doing a blog posting now really just to put the pics of the kids online more then anything. The day was good, it started way to early though. Man the kids were up at the crack of dawn, if only it were the crack of dawn in the UK and not for say India .. shesh.
Thankfully, Yuki’s dad is here staying with us and he was looking after the kids.. Yuki and I managed to sleep in until nearly 9am, which was nice. In fact, we managed to sleep in until nearly 10am Friday and Saturday. I can’t even begin to recall sleeping in that late when vast amounts of alcohol was the direct cause of it. So can’t really complain much.
Anyhow, the day started with breakfast as usual.. then we sent the kids up stairs with their lao ye (grandfather in Chinese, it’s more specific then that, but trust me, you don’t want me to open that can of worms here and now ). Yuki and I took to hiding all the stuff for the kids.. candy, chocolate eggs, bunny’s, all sorts of rubbish haha. Then it was time to unleash the kids..
First, here is a quick tour of the hiding places of all the candy
Here’s a video of the “hunt” under way .. I love Emma’s comment at one point “I’ve got so many…”
Here are a few pics…
You can see all the pics and videos taken today by CLICKING HERE.
Enjoy the pics and videos. I hope to do more blogging in the future.. I’ve been pretty slack at getting out updates, but life has been full of upheavals that… well… frankly made blogging a chore.
Besides, I’m booked to attend WordCamp UK in July. It’s the second year for the event and the first year I’m going … it’s a weekend full of meeting other bloggers, some who do it for a living but most because they enjoy it (I assume anyhow). With enjoy luck this event will encourage me to blog more, or even just give me loads of ideas to make my blogging better (which frankly wouldn’t take much, I know I suck at blogging).
It’s still a bit early and not all of the details are available as yet .. but I’m waiting with bated breath for all the details.. I’ve actually already booked my hotel room.. didn’t want that to be the primary reason I couldn’t get there.
I’ve been using WordPress now for what.. nearly 3 years I think.. maybe only 2, can’t remember. But I’m dead impressed with it… I’ve been watching all of the WordCamp events around the world and waiting for one to come up here.. I know they had a 2008 one in the UK, however I missed that completely for some reason..
I’d been through this exercise about 4 years ago but having rebuilt that machine I couldn’t for the life of me recall how I fixed it .. well, now that I’ve blogged about it I’ll at least have one good place to go and find the answer again 
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