back

by kristjansson·4y ago·view on hn ↗
Maybe you want a physical KVM in between the two sources and the monitor? I tried to get a similar setup working locally (2 monitors, a macOS source and a Debian source, supporting all four input/output combinations) and couldn't find a satisfying software solution. There were a few people using ddcutil/ddccontrol/ddctool on Linux hosts to script changes on source changes, but (a) it was difficult/impossible to get DDC to work consistently with DP and HDMI outputs with first party Nvidia drivers (b) I couldn't find anything comparable on the macOS side.

Hardware KVMs weren't much better, but if you're willing to spend the money, and have enough DP sources on both sides, they aren't too bad.

Funny how hard/expensive it is to replicate the convenience of a nice analogue KVM with a bunch of VGA/DVI/PS2 I/O, a knob, an not much else...

2 comments
What about IP-KVM something like PiKVM? I imagine it would be far more capable than those software solutions.
Actually, belay that. I just tested with Monterey, and a new MBP, and it works the way that I expect. I need to use the built-in HDMI, but it works.
Does anybody know of software-defined ways to switch this behavior? I have the opposite problem sometimes -- I have an external display shared between two devices (of varying OSes), and sometimes I want it to remain a logical display on each device no matter which input is selected on the display. But other times I want the display to be removed when the device is not the active input.
I'll bet that SwitchResX will do it (for the Mac). It's a pretty heavy-duty utility (look at the link in the root).