"modern" KVM that works?

[Tom Buskey]

On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 7:31 AM, David Rysdam <david at rysdam.org> wrote:

> Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> writes:
> > The two vendors I avoid like the plague are IOGear and Belkin.
>
>
I've used an older Belkin that could do 4 ports w/ a parallel cable that
were ok.  I have an OmniView 4 port that's old enough to support serial
mice that works well at home.
I have another Belkin Omniview Pro 3 at work that randomly repeats keys
(including backspace) enough that I use a usb cable.

I've used a raretin(?) that had a propriatary remote access.  That was
flaky but the local stuff was ok.  RJ45 to keyboard/video adapters were
$100 ea but could do PC, Sun, PS/2, USB.

I've used Avocent in the past and we just got one at work with remote
access that I'll hook up in a week.

All of this is complicated by me not doing a lot of the gruntwork
> myself. I'm trying to get my 15-year-old programmer hardware-trained and
> I frequently find that the most basic instruction ("try booting it when
> you're set to that KVM input") somehow ends up with breaking out
> needlenose pliers to fix a connector....
>
>
Honestly, if I could make everything serial, I would.  Cheaper per port,
remote access is easy, scales, works for multiple users w/ a bit of work,
can log output and doesn't break.

/rant
I cry inside when I see someone take a perfectly good Sun Sparc server with
serial console and install a keyboard, mouse and graphics card.  Just
because you're used to PCs doesn't mean every computer works like that.
Lots of network gear has a serial console as well.
/end

So, there's a 3 pin to usb that gives you a usb serial port on the RasPi
(Adafruit).  I usually ssh to the RasPi and use VNC if I need a GUI.

However, that doesn't really help you :-/.  I'd imagine mixing HDMI and VGA
is going to be an issue for any KVM.
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