Free software to share mouse and keyboard between linux and windows?

Question

I have a doubt, there is a free program to share mouse between linux and windows, I have a PC and a laptop, on the laptop I have w10 and ubuntu mate 18.04, and the pc w10, when I use the PC and laptop with w10, I use the windows software called "Mouse without borders" but it is only for windows, I am looking for a free one for linux and windows, I know that there is sinergy but it is paid

Solution 1

A search on alternativeto (and filtering by Open Source & Linux) returns Barrier, which is forked from Synergy.

There used to be small print on the Synergy website stating that the payment is to download synergy. It's still open source, and you can might be able to build it yourself, but it might need proprietary binaries.

Solution 2

Use Barrier. It is free and open source, was forked from synergy. It is amazing. (Link to GitHub repo)

Installation in newer Ubuntu versions:

Run in a terminal:

sudo apt install barrier

If there is no paackage in your distribution or if you prefer snap packages, you can do instead:

sudo snap install barrier

Installation in Ubuntu 18.04:

In ubuntu 18.04 an alternative way is to first install flatpak:

https://flatpak.org/setup/Ubuntu/

And then barrier using flatpak:

https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.debauchee.barrier

Comments

[Rinzwind]

I believe there is 1 issue with building yourself: the compiled version uses closed source binaries (and that is probably also the reason why it costs money) and those are not included in the build you do yourself. Synergy is worth the 29 dollars (lucky me got a free license for beta testing ;-) )

[darioxlz]

you can share the software compiled?

[Kurtoid]

According to the license file, yes.

[darioxlz]

i mean, can you pass the program already compiled for windows 10 home 64 bits and for ubuntu 18.04?

[Kurtoid]

No. You need to follow the instructions for Windows on Windows 10 and the instructions for Ubuntu on Ubuntu 18.04. The easiest and cheapest solution might be to just use Barrier

[Bad Loser]

Flatpak should be good for any Linux system. I certainly had a good experience using it to install Barrier 2.3.1 yesterday. Used Win10 as 'server' and Debian as 'client'. Had to run with DEBUG2 logging because of failed to verify server certificate fingerprint problem. See here. Sharing the clipboard is the best thing since sliced bread.

[Kurtoid]

To clarify, you can pass your mouse between Ubuntu and Windows once you've compiled binaries for both platforms.

[Lissanro Rayen]

Or just run "sudo apt install barrier" to install it (worked for me in Ubuntu 19.10).

[Flimm]

The last version to include the package synergy in the repos seem to be Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

[Teshan Shanuka J]

In ubuntu 18 I got No apt package "barrier", but there is a snap with that name. Try "snap install barrier" Had to snap install

[Flimm]

I had to disable "Enable SSL" in the settings to get Barrier to work.