You want a SunRay. (but probably don't wanna pay for it. They're awfully expensive!)

Synergy sounds like what you want, with unison file syncing?

Virtualize! Sell/donate/recycle the multiple machines, acquire one moderately powerful machine (desktops are crazy cheap these days), and setup virtual machines as needed. Easy to admin, you can setup VMs for any occasion, and uses less power than running a bunch of hardware. I like VirtualBox.

This is more or less what I want too: to control any of my computers from any other one, preferably, the one that's right in front of me.

I mostly solve this with ssh. Sometimes VNC, if I need to control a GUI app that's already running. If the computers are sitting next to each other and I can see both monitors at once, I like x2x or synergy.

KVM

That is what you want.

There are solutions to this, but internet latency is a PITA. For desktops in my office / cube / desk, KVMs and Synergy work nicely. With Synergy you hook each desktop up to a monitor describe the organization of monitors and then it routes mouse&keyboard to the appropriate machine. Beware that synergy is unencrypted, so your keystrokes may cross the network in the clear!

For further away, stuff like XDMCP can be configured. I've no idea how to use it, but as you can tell by the five letter acronym started by an X, it's an old technology.

Past that, there's some gnome supported VNC that kinda copes with latency and packet loss.

You could look into X11 forwarding over SSH, to add to the suggestions.

Hi Emma Jane,

That sounds like an awesome idea. This seems like something that we used to use XDMCP for back in the day on Linux, but I haven't tried similar things for a long time. XDMCP for X hosts and VNC for other boxes could be a possibility. :-)

Jono

Yeah, a KVM is like the exact definition of what you need. Get one.

There's no "right" solution to this. Synergy, VNC, virtual machines, NoMachine's NX protocol or XDMCP all have their place, but which you choose depends on the machines you're connecting to and from, your network topology, and what exactly it is you want to do.

For driving one Ubuntu machine from the screen and keyboard of another, I favour XDMCP. It's an insecure protocol, though, so only useful in an intranet or over a VPN. I like it because it's trivial to setup and use:

* On the remote machine go to System=>Administration=>Login Window and enable remote access. You'll need to restart GDM (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart) or reboot.

* On the machine with the monitor and keyboard, press F10 (or click the Options button) at the login screen. Select the XDMCP option and it will go off and search your network for machines to log into. Double click the remote machine and login as usual.

This approach works especially well if you set up shared folders or a NAS so that you can easily move files from one machine to the other.

You can also use XDMCP when the local machine is a Windows box: http://www.peppertop.com/blog/?p=54

Last time I checked the telepathy guys are doing an awesome job integrating vnc with telepathy to create a super simple way of accessing other machines.

You are all thinking too small. Plan9 give you all of this!

john

Are all these computers "local" (i.e. geographically co-located)? If so, allow me to suggest a KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) switch. I routinely use two computers, and work on others for various co-workers and the like. Rather than unhooking all the cables from my computer(s) and hooking them up to the foreign machines, I simply hook them to the spare cables on the KVM and then a keyboard combination (PrintScrn+PrintScrn) switches between computers.

If they're all Windows machines, Remote Desktop delivers a better desktop experience than VNC.

But I've used VNC to much acclaim, as well.

The Windows remote desktop does the same job and it is ready built in Windows. If you have another os systems then VNC is the only way to go I think. hannaO

Well it's a good idea towars working on single workstation for all peripherals.I'm not well about hooking into remote hardware from VNC. anti gravity chair