curbstickle

TL;DR: Want to use my desktop keyboard/mouse with my Laptop. What software are you using/enjoying? Arch+KDE w/ Wayland will be the main host, main client is Windows 11. Secondary hosts may be Debian and MacOS, same client, but low priority on the Mac.

Hey folks, I'm rearranging some things a bit at home, would love to get some current thoughts on keyboard/mouse sharing over IP (no video).

I have to put up with some tools that don't play nicely with wine/proton, and so my work laptop is a windows device. I'll be controlling that device primary from Arch and Debian, though MacOS is a possibility. I'd like to keep the laptop closed and not add another mouse/keyboard into the mix, so Keyb/Mouse over IP it is.

Here's what I'm looking at, haven't tried them all yet, but looking for opinions:

• Barrier - Dead fork. Hasn't been updated in some time, being superseded by input-leap. Most portions of the project managed by someone who had not been active for a couple years before the Input Leap fork.
• Input Leap - Forked from Barrier at the end of 2021, and nearly 3 years later, no stable binary releases yet. Development seems fairly active, but no binary releases yet doesn't provide a massive amount of confidence that it will be stable. Doesn't mean I won't build and test though.
• Lan Mouse - Seems pretty neat, the lack of input capture on MacOS could create an issue for me in certain situations, but I can work around that if I need to for the rare times I'd need it. Traffic is unencrypted/plaintext. Its entirely local, and I've got more security than most users (and some companies), but still. Probably leading the pack right now.
• Deskflow - Upstream project for Synergy, a rename to differentiate the user project from Synergy. TONS of recent activity, but the switch is very recent. I don't know if there are any binaries built, but its a longstanding project (and like many, many others, I used Synergy before it went commercial, it was nice).

Any other options out there? Good/bad experiences with any of these?

I got my hands on a Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500 - you may have seen these in conference rooms, its a small Teams Room or Zoom Room device, based off their Tiny lineup, with a built-in touch display thats about 11" in diagonal.

https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkSmart/ThinkSmart_Hub_500/ThinkSmart_Hub_500_Spec.pdf

I left the 128gb nvme in there for now, and threw Debian 12 on it. Touch worked throughout the installation process, all I did was attach a keyboard, power, and network (along with the thumb drive with netinstall), now installed with KDE.

Considering the specs, the only part I'm surprised works well is the touchscreen, its otherwise just a generic lenovo tiny (which I have several of already, 6th-9th gen, as part of my tiny/mini/micro server stack). I could have chosen a different flavor, but I'm a long, long, loooonngggg time Debain user so its my go-to.

In terms of touch, tap, drag, and long press are all working. Video looks good with the UI set at 125% scaling, and to be candid its rather snappy and responsive.

I did this 100% for my own personal entertainment, so now for some thoughts for the community - what would be fun to use it for? A few of my thoughts....

• I could use it as a HomeAssistant kiosk. Neat, but.... overkill compared to the tablets doing the same job.
• Make it an emulation station, attach my steam controller and maybe my usb adapters for N64/GC/Sega/PS/etc.
• Use it to test a series of distributions to see how well they handle touch drivers for this silly thing (EndeavorOS is probably going to happen, I may be a long time Debian guy but I should spend more regular time in other things, and not just my arch VMs).
• I don't know, gcompris for my kids? They already have it though on an android tablet and an old mac mini (like, 2011ish) hooked up to the TV in the living room.
• Make it another proxmox endpoint for the cluster, install a DE anyway, and then let it be an always-visible display for grafana?
• Install OBS, let the hdmi capture have some purpose?

What about you folks, what would you find fun to do with this box?

TL;DR: How do you sort your books for your book server?

I'm thinking of reworking my eBook/comic/etc library, and I'm curious how other people structure things.

I don't want to separate fiction out by genre or anything since some can fit multiple genres, so I'm leaning towards Dewey decimal system categories personally.

I'm also planning a bit ahead since my daughter is now starting to read more than sight words books, so I'm thinking of separating kids fiction and adult fiction.

I also currently have a section for comics, manga, and LNs. Those are separated mostly for who goes to what, and what they do/don't want to read. So my library right now (plus the kids section) will look like:

• Kids Fiction
• Adult Fiction
• Comics
• Manga
• Light/Web Novels
• Non-Fiction

Simple for navigation, and searchable, but maybe not the best for browsing. So I was thinking maybe the Dewey categories:

• Computer Science, Knowledge, and Systems
• Philosophy & Psychology
• Social Sciences
• Language
• Science
• Technology
• Arts
• Adult Fiction
• Kids Fiction
• History/Geography

Nicely browsable, but some of those sections will be really light on books.

What method of sorting do you use? Any librarians out there with thoughts on better approaches than the Dewey decimal system?

EDIT: I really like what @[email protected] mentioned, which I've currently adapted to:

• Instructional (How-to, manuals, gardening, etc)
• Tech (Electronics reference materials, programming reference books, etc).
• Equine (all my wife's horse stuff)
• Kids Fiction
• Kids Non-Fiction (I've got some geography books and such my daughter likes, I'm sure it will expand over time)
• Adult Fiction
• Adult Non-Fiction
• Comics
• Manga
• LN/WN

I can easily allow the kids accounts to have access to the Kids section, not include the comics/manga/tech my wife has no interest in, etc.