Extend own desktop with another one over the network in Linux

My colleague and myself are working together in the same room and each using two monitors which are placed side by side, so we can observe the work of each other.

In most cases one of us discovers an interesting feed or needs to drop some text/code to the desktop of the other one so we have to transfer the date using a shared directory over the network, which can be very time consuming and unproductive.

Is there an application which extends my desktop (virtually) to the one of my colleague over the network?

Every time my mouse cursor touches the right monitor border, it should appear in the desktop of my colleague so I can drag and drop files and text into other system.

Some examples:

I found an interesting site which is rather long to type so I just select the text and drag it through my desktop to the one of my colleague and drop it in the address bar of his Internet browser
I need to transfer some files so I select the files and drag-drop it into his desktop
I already wrote some code and want to paste it into the eclipse of my colleague, so I just select it and drag it across the desktop and drop it into the other eclipse

Essentially it's just drag and drop over the network but I don't want to use any remote desktop applications, I want to extend my desktop with the one I can get over the network being virtually my third monitor.

It's really inconvenient to manage the remote desktop in a separate window and I already can see the desktop of my colleague as he sits just besides me so any remote desktop application would be for naught.

I really don't know if this is doable or just nonsense I'm talking but I really want to know if there are chances to accomplish this task.

(PS: We both use the exact same Linux distribution (Mint 9, Kernel: 3.0.0-12) and the exact same hardware)

Mimimimi

Posted 2011-11-03T13:37:17.590

Reputation: 21

Answers

Your looking for Synergy. It allows you to extend your desktop to other monitors even if it is not attached to your computer using your network. It's cross platform and fairly easy to setup and configure. From their main page:

Synergy lets you easily share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers on your desk, and it's Free and Open Source. Just move your mouse off the edge of one computer's screen on to another. You can even share all of your clipboards. All you need is a network connection. Synergy is cross-platform (works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux).

Supercereal

Posted 2011-11-03T13:37:17.590

Reputation: 8 643

I'm not sure how well it's going to work with both systems being controlled, but it is the best bet. – mgorven – 2012-04-27T18:56:07.417

Synergy is limited in the sense that one can only share a keyboard and mouse. What he wants I think is the ability to extend the desktop as a virtual monitor onto another machine. No solution is simple, I'm looking at Xdmx at the moment, other possibilities are: virtualgl, clustergl, or using VNC to connect to a secondary workspace – ZiglioUK – 2013-09-12T23:38:21.837

How about "Screenrecycler", I haven't tested it, but sounds good.

http://www.screenrecycler.com/ScreenRecycler.html

VDR

Posted 2011-11-03T13:37:17.590

Reputation: 851