Custom Synergy Config - Dual Monitor Surround

Synergy is a program installed on two computers. The program runs in one of two modes, Server or Client. This tutorial shows how to surround your main computer with dual monitors with the dual monitors of another computer. The trick here is to actually reverse the ordering of the monitors using the nvidia-setttings control panel (or using the windows provided 'Screen Resolution' panel) by placing monitor 2 to the left of monitor 1). The symbol <-> represents the synergy link between the computers, and is used as a guide for custom coding of the synergy.sgc file.

Example Monitor Configuration

/----------\     /----------\/----------\     /----------\
| Client   |     | Server   || Server   |     | Client   | 
| screen 2 | <-> | screen 1 || screen 2 | <-> | screen 1 |
| (right)  |     | (left)   || (right)  |     | (left)   | 
\----------/     \----------/\----------\     \----------/  .

Contents of synergy.sgc

section: screens
         serverhostname:
         clienthostname:
end
section: links
      serverhostname:
              left = clienthostname
              right = clienthostname
      clienthostname:
              right = serverhostname
              left = serverhostname
end

Installing synergy

The official website is www.synergyfoss.org, but this package is supported by apt.

On server

sudo apt-get install synergys

On client

sudo apt-get install synergyc

For autostart configuration, I suggest you add these to your start programs like...

On server

synergys -c ~/.synergy.conf

On client

synergyc <serverhostname>

Full customisation is out of the scope of this article, please refer to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynergyHowto