
Barrier = Single keyboard/mouse solution for controlling multiple machines - jbj
https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/blob/master/README.md
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aairey
The only thing missing for me (and many others) is Wayland support.

So please, if someone reads this that wants to hack on that, please do!

[https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/issues/109](https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/issues/109)

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junon
Happy to see something like this. I paid for Synergy a long time ago, but as
others have echoed, I'm not a huge fan of the direction they took.

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bendauphinee
They recently announced a v3 of synergy to address a lot of the issues

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blemasle
I started to use barrier a few days ago, and one problem arose almost
immediately: the lack of support for AltGr key, which a lot of non us
keyboards rely on for special characters. In my case, I can't type a # or @
using barrier, making it barely usable...

[https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/issues/100](https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/issues/100)

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ElCapitanMarkla
I love Barrier. I have a PC as my main machine with my keyboard and mouse and
then I have my MacBook to the side. I find Barrier so smooth that it honestly
is just like the MacBook is just another screen. My only gripe is that the
copy paste between the PC and MacBook seems to only work one way some days and
sometimes not at all.

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5986043handy
I find it a bit ironic that the name of this is Barrier when the purpose is to
eliminate barriers, but joke aside, this looks very useful!

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jbj
It is apparently a fork from a program called synergy which at some version
turned into a paid software. I guess the devs priority was to make the open
source version up to date.

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gruturo
I'm a paid user of synergy and despite not necessarily loving the attitude and
the direction of the company behind it, I find the software invaluable. Not
just for the space saved on my desk, but also for copy-pasting across
different environments (though it breaks on rich text - I have to wash things
through notepad at times), sometimes I even abuse it uuencoding small files
and moving them across. I use it on 2 different mixes of Windows, FreeBSD,
MacOS and Linux(Pi).

Another big win is the mental order it ingrains in me - e.g. this screen is
for sensitive browsing on a sandboxed machine, this is for shells and
corporate intranet, that is the gaming box etc.

Also - its "follow focus" (really follow machine) behavior is the perfect
sweet spot between alt-tabbing and true follow focus: if I move the mouse to
the next screen, I'm focusing an app in that machine. Move back, my inputs go
to the last focused app on the previous system. Can't explain this easily in
words but it's so good - better than 2 monitors hooked to the same box.

I'll keep a close eye on barrier. I'm happy to see its open source core remain
available and maintained.

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jbj
I just installed barrier server on my raspberry pi and set up hotkeys to
switch between 3 machines to send the input to, there is also an option to
have the mouse continue out of the screen into the next screen monitor on a
different computer which could be clever if using multiple monitors.

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rmrfstar
I can run an ssh server and serve rdp from localhost. It's free and reasonably
secure.

Why would I use Barrier instead?

People use Dropbox instead of sshfs, so I bet there is a reason. I just don't
see it.

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epakai
I run multiple pcs (Linux, win, imac). Barrier setup lets me control all three
like a multi monitor setup. Its suitable for gaming on windows with Linux as
the input host (hotkey to lock input to one host).

Generally just super convenient when I want to control multiple real machines
with dedicated displays. I even sometimes use it for Linux laptop + win tablet
portable setup.

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trefil
I made something similar as a toy project after being frustrated with
Synergy/Barriers poor support for my keyboard layout (Czech).

It's for Linux only as it relies on udev and the encryption (AES with a key
derived from a password shared between clients and server) is not ideal, but
it was a fun project for sure.

[https://github.com/htrefil/kshare](https://github.com/htrefil/kshare)

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teraku
I've been using Synergy[0] in the past, but I eliminated the use-case for me.
Only have one machine on my desk nowadays. It's commercial but works like a
charm.

This here looks very promising, but since I already have a license and no more
use-case I'm a bit bummed I can't/won't check it out..

[0] - [https://symless.com/synergy](https://symless.com/synergy)

