Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

erfanjoker · 2020-03-24 04:27:49

Hi, I have two laptops and both have arch-linux installed, one of them is quietly old and has low specs, I was wondering if i could use the old laptop as a monitor for the main laptop, I use xfce and i want to extend my main laptops screen to the old laptops screen and use them as two separate workspaces

What i tried was Synergy which allows you to share mouse and keyboard and it worked cool, but i don't want two separate OS's and hardware's, i want my second laptop as a new workspace for my main laptop and not to use its own hardware

I have to mention that my main laptop supports HDMI and VGA Port(Female), meanwhile the old laptop doesn't support HDMI, but it has a VGA-like(male) port which is similar to VGA and i guess is VGA, but it has different positions of bumps from a normal VGA male's as lots of projector monitor's do

I was wondering if there would be a chance to share screen using LAN cable or USB-to-USB cable

any ideas ?

seth · 2020-03-24 07:34:15

a VGA-like(male) port which is similar to VGA and i guess is VGA

Does it maybe look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_port
…

Please clarify: do you want to use the old notebooks keyboard and mouse (ie. a multihead setup where two people can use the same system on two workstations at the same time) or just abuse it as a second output/monitor (you use your new notebook, but have two screens and a bigger workspace)?

erfanjoker · 2020-03-24 07:44:10

seth wrote:

a VGA-like(male) port which is similar to VGA and i guess is VGA
Does it maybe look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_port
…
Please clarify: do you want to use the old notebooks keyboard and mouse (ie. a multihead setup where two people can use the same system on two workstations at the same time) or just abuse it as a second output/monitor (you use your new notebook, but have two screens and a bigger workspace)?

Yes yes its exactly the same as Serial Port you mentioned, i had no idea about what it was.
I dont need any mouse or keyboard of old laptop, the old laptop's use i want is only a second monitor for my main laptop, nothing more
I was thinking of doing a hardware related changes like disconnecting the old laptops monitor input from its main board and kind of using some cables to output my hdmi or vga from main laptop to the old one, but thats not the perfect way, i guess there would be better ways using two linuxes

seth · 2020-03-24 07:58:25

This is called screen casting.
See eg. https://blogs.gnome.org/benzea/2019/01/ … creencast/

The approach is always the same: the local output is (partly) rendered into a video and transferred via usb or ethernet onto the remote system which runs a video player in fullscreen mode.
This is rather resource intense and you want HW enconding on the source and HW decoding on the remote system to make it "usable".

I'll boldly assert that if your notebook has a serial port, it's HW is not capable of doing this.

Here's a blogpost about re-using the internal display.
It is possible, but not like plugging two cables together.
https://hackernoon.com/https-medium-com … 0ac3bbb6b9

erfanjoker · 2020-03-24 08:06:10

seth wrote:

This is called screen casting.
See eg. https://blogs.gnome.org/benzea/2019/01/ … creencast/
The approach is always the same: the local output is (partly) rendered into a video and transferred via usb or ethernet onto the remote system which runs a video player in fullscreen mode.
This is rather resource intense and you want HW enconding on the source and HW decoding on the remote system to make it "usable".
I'll boldly assert that if your notebook has a serial port, it's HW is not capable of doing this.
Here's a blogpost about re-using the internal display.
It is possible, but not like plugging two cables together.
https://hackernoon.com/https-medium-com … 0ac3bbb6b9

Thanks for response, but i guess screencasting only mirrors the current screen to another screen, what i want is to get the old laptops monitor detected as monitor for my main laptop so that i can have two different workspaces in each screen, could this popssibly be done with screencasting ? I mean xfdesktop workspaces

seth · 2020-03-24 08:13:06

This is the same principle. The display server renders the complete ouput. Parts of it are encoded in a video and played on the other system. Other parts are just displayed locally.
The selection of the parts is the only difference between "mirroring" and "extending".

What model is your old notebook exactly?

erfanjoker · 2020-03-24 08:21:35

What if i want to extend and combine both screens into a large single screen ?

My main laptop is `Lenovo V580c` and my old one is `dell pp18l`

seth · 2020-03-24 08:44:50

That's a distinction of the display server (ie. you run multiple X11 servers, one X11 server with multiple screens or one X11 server with one screen, spanning several outputs)
It is all the same thing.

The thing probably has a 945GM IGP, no hardware decoding, so decoding a 1280x1024 (?) h264 video is gonna take more CPU power than it has.

erfanjoker · 2020-03-30 11:50:19

seth wrote:

That's a distinction of the display server (ie. you run multiple X11 servers, one X11 server with multiple screens or one X11 server with one screen, spanning several outputs)
It is all the same thing.
The thing probably has a 945GM IGP, no hardware decoding, so decoding a 1280x1024 (?) h264 video is gonna take more CPU power than it has.

Can i use OBS Studio to stream an specific workspace to local network, and then i use a second laptop's vlc stream from network capability to show that workspace ? ofcourse they have different resoloution's , so i was thinking if i could set specific resolotion to specific XFCE Workspace, and also make OBS Studio Stream only a sepcific workspace

seth · 2020-03-30 13:34:58

That'll only allow you to mirror the system running OBS (i believe, I don't have too much experience with it so I frankly don't know whether it can simulate an extended workspace and only record that) and the remaining problem will still be that the old notebook does barely have the HW power to play the video, let alone at eg. 60Hz.
I'll also just guesstimate that the additional power demand of the notebook will outpace the costs of a new monitor (certainly from ebay or a written off office device) very quickly (at least in Europe where most of the energy costs are taxes…) - plus you'll have a spare notebook (and linux, even w/ a GUI, can be surprisingly frugal…)

Arch Linux

#1 2020-03-24 04:27:49

Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#2 2020-03-24 07:34:15

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#3 2020-03-24 07:44:10

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#4 2020-03-24 07:58:25

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#5 2020-03-24 08:06:10

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#6 2020-03-24 08:13:06

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#7 2020-03-24 08:21:35

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#8 2020-03-24 08:44:50

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#9 2020-03-30 11:50:19

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

#10 2020-03-30 13:34:58

Re: Use an arch linux, as a monitor for another arch linux !

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