Better than a KVM switch

So today I finally moved the server downstairs. That got rid of the sound. To access the box I’m using cygwin’s ssh and X server. However, the real trick is to also take advantage of a little known utility called MegaScale MultiDesktop. MultiDesktop allows you start new Windows desktop shells and cycle between them using Ctrl-Alt Left | Right. The nice thing about MultiDesktop is that you can choose any program to launch as a new shell. So, I launch a cygwin terminal. From that I start up a cygwin X server in full screen mode. Then I ssh to the linux server, set the DISPLAY variable, and launch my window manager. The result is that I can switch between my windows box and my linux box just by pressing Ctrl-Alt Left and I don’t have to worry about KVM switches or the fact that the two computers are on completely different stories of my house.

The exact steps to set this up are:

1. Install Cygwin. Make sure to include openssh and the X server tools. 2. Install MegaScale MultiDesktop. 3. Open up cygwin and create a new X server batch file:

4. Start up MultiDesktop and create a “New Desktop…” 5. Browse and select “cygwin.bat” as the shell application. 6. In the new shell and cygwin terminal, run “startxfull.bat” 7. In the new xterm, run “xhost [server-ip-or-name]”. This allows your linux box to connect to cygwin’s X server. 8. ssh to your linux server. 9. Change the DISPLAY variable (“export DISPLAY=[cygwin-PC-IP-address]:0.0") 10. Start your window manager: “gnome-session” or “startkde” 11. Enjoy!

To top it off, I have a Sony MHC-GSX100W stereo system which includes a wireless transmitter. By attaching the transmitter to my linux server’s headphone jack I can also get audio up in my computer room. It feels like I have the computer right next to me, but (thankfully) it’s downstairs and hidden away.