KVM switches and pin-out friendly adapters?

For instance, this:

One of the next low-budget tangents I plan on going on, is to get a few KVM switches. They're incredibly cheap when they include VGA ports in addition to the USB. I mostly don't use VGA for my video because it sears my eyes a lot quicker than the days of old. So this project has nothing to do with a need to switch video, just 3 or 4 USB 2.0 lines but an audio jack would be pretty cool..

So you'd think there would be some $1 adapter that connects the VGA pins to a USB jack, so when you switch it's another routing for the USB or even more than that, add audio or SPDIF with that many pins. I'm quite sure it's a Friday night soldering project but Grasshopper is here to ask Master (with soundtrack no less) if you've done that or what?

My motive is party to grab switches that might be wasted just because not many people use VGA and also I've got some HDMI switches already, and quite frankly wonder the same thing, if there are breakout boxes to have 4 USB lines switchable over like that. I'd go that route as well.

Just need some adapters, cheap little pinout-friendly adapters?

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2019 08:46PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

DEVICE ---> usb output -> usb_dongle -> VGA_SIGNAL /// is available.

VGA_SIGNAL ----> VGA_2_USB adapter -> USB input /// sounds like a Video Capture Card to me.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> For instance, this:
>
I don't really know what you wanna do with a KVM switch. Regardless, that is almost 2x the price of this 2-In-1-Out 2 Port USB 2.0 KVM Switch, except this one shipped from China and may take more time to arrive.

habibie Wrote:
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> I don't really know what you wanna do with a KVM
> switch.

For desk situation where you'd have to crawl under the desk to switch over computers, this way is one click and keyboard, mouse and anything else you want switches over. Very nice for small rooms where "one" mouse and keyboard are already taking up enough space.*

*Having said that, many Dell monitors have a USB jack on the side, and a cord goes down to the computer. It's handy but I added a 4-port switchable hub. So that sits under my main monitor, a printer is plugged in, a wireless mouse, and the last two will be used up quick.
In this particular case, it's to solve some problems in Windows - by switching the printer off, some things won't be running all the time with the OS which saves threads and needless resource waste in RAM etc. FWIW the purpose of the extra mouse is because of a multiple mouse manager for Windows named PluralInput. This is for music production, if there's automation on and a GUI with lots of knobs and controls, it's very handy to be using two mice. My audio is Firewire and I've found a switcher box lately that was liquidated from a school that used it.

But that third USB line of what needs switching over (whether that's VGA pins re-routed to USB o some other way), that goes up to the Monitor hub. But the more I think about it, you'd think there are enough VGA pins to make that a USB 3 switcher (which switches one line of that while the USB 2s also switch, and if so, both main computers have that.and that would be insane but in a good way. I'd definitely convert that to USB 3 but first things first.

By the way I tried ordering two of those KVM switches from AliExpress and unfortunately my AMEX debit card didn't seem to work. I could have used the $5 off. I 'll try again tomorrow and if it works I'm on a good path.

The other one is for Windows/Linux here and that would bring great rewards for me, just keeping train of thought - plug two USB 2s while the other one is running as well as the HDMI into another switcher, and do the switchover when you're in a good mood to do so LOL

With this all done, a Windows tangent I had to do will be prepped for hopefully three years of my life's best work, were I'll be exploring Linux a lot and see what can be done even better. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go crawl under a desk LOL

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2019 08:53PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> But that third USB line of what needs switching over (whether that's VGA pins re-routed to USB o some other way), that goes up to the Monitor hub. But the more I think about it, you'd think there are enough VGA pins to make that a USB 3 switcher (which switches one line of that while the USB 2s also switch, and if so, both main computers have that.and that would be insane but in a good way. I'd definitely convert that to USB 3 but ...
>
Sorry, I am lost here. R U talking about a VGA-to-USB converter? If you are talking about a USB-to-VGA conversion, I can understand. But, a VGA-to-USB conversion???

> With this all done, a Windows tangent I had to do will be prepped for hopefully three years of my life's best work, were I'll be exploring Linux a lot and see what can be done even better.
>
I wish you bon voyage with Linux OS.

BTW, ever thought of running Android applications on a Windows OS? Take a look Android-x86 Open Source Project and perhaps you can test drive it on your Windows computer.

habibie Wrote:
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> Sorry, I am lost here. R U talking about a
> VGA-to-USB
> converter? If you are talking about a
> USB-to-VGA conversion, I can understand. But, a
> VGA-to-USB conversion???
>

VGA has 15 pins in three rows on a DE-15 connector as shown here.
USB 3.0 varies in its pin count but starts at around 8 as seen here, and expanded upon here.


So with those KVM switches I think all it's doing for the VGA is switching 15 pins from A destination to B destination, and suspect anything wired to those pins will switch all the same, if the pinouts are matched.

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-

habibie Wrote:
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> I wish you bon voyage with Linux OS.
>

I don't understand what you mean or if you understand my situation. I do some things with digital audio for 25 years. I know Windows backward and forward (I know that USB 3 card I plugged in last year was backward LOL (OUCH!).
So there's knowns and unknowns. I'm putting the finishing touches on the knowns, which are several Windows 7 machines.

Two main machines and two additional pieces of garbage running Windows. Both main machines are now 10 years old - one has been upgraded over the years and the other is made of old parts still new in the packaging. Both machines are totally effortless and miles of headroom, done on a budget and programmed as clever as I'll probably do in my lifetime. A joy to use. Their specialty is to make use of the latest innovations which sound so good it changes some direction in popular music. But it's very important to note, Linux would seem superior in it's networking and all kinds of places.

With this in place I'll have less anxiety about taking another long swim in Linux. Android scares me but I'm okay with it on any device that's constricted to home LAN. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :-)

My switches will be used as much on Linux machines as Windows, that's why I'm asking here.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2019 12:34PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Joey,

> Their specialty is to make
> use of the latest innovations which sound so good
> it changes some direction in popular music. But
> it's very important to note, Linux would seem
> superior in it's networking and all kinds of
> places.
>

True. It's getting more and more easy to find drivers for Linux because nowadays Linux has won the servers and embedded market. IMO, if you create systems or gadgets, do it using Linux.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> habibie Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> > I wish you bon voyage with Linux OS.
> >
>
> I don't understand what you mean or if you understand my situation.
>
I meant in a good way.

> Two main machines and two additional pieces of garbage running Windows. Both main machines are now 10 years old - one has been upgraded over the years and the other is made of old parts still new in the packaging. Both machines are totally effortless and miles of headroom, done on a budget and programmed as clever as I'll probably do in my lifetime.
>
I have some simple questions.

• Have you noticed the performance of your Windows computers gets degraded over the time?
• How much hardware resources get wasted to host an antivirus software to protect its host?

habibie Wrote:
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> I have some simple questions.
>

>
• Have you noticed the performance of your
  > Windows computers gets degraded over the time?
  >
• How much hardware resources get wasted to host
  > an antivirus software to protect its host?
  >

The first question I could go on and on.... but 8 years ago as an experiment I "rolled back" a factory (probably HP) Windows XP machine so that it was the way the factory installs it. I only updated everything and set it to reboot automatically. I let it sit and run. First it installed a browser helper having to do with "Ask dot com" which invited other things in there, and it took two weeks until it was almost unusable because of all the running processes and "legit" bad stuff. The totally pathetic Norton/Symantec suite was running by default and doing nothing to stop the scourge. At the time I made a simple batch file to turn all those running processes off to help with neighbors who needed their computers to run good enough for malwarebytes excellent malware removal to get in there easier.

Step one with Windows is turn off anything at startup that you don't want running, add the best firewall which I think is NetLimiter, which shows you what is secretly calling home and gives you easy visual confirmation what is going on. Then Ghostery for every browser and set that up right. Change all apps that can be improved like Adobe Reader to PDFX-Change Viewer etc and MS Office to LibreOffice. Strange some freeware programs are much less buggy than paid, but they still need to be firewalled or they'll do things behind your back. CCleaner used to be good but now turns on when you specified for it not to. Back to Step one, some things like Dropbox want to stay on even when you tell them not to. I don't use mine much but it's a drag when I finish to go into Services and both disable two startups and also turn off Dropbox in the other place where you tell an app to start or not. The Startup list for .exes can be found in most apps like CCleaner, or Startup by Mike Lin (always run as administrator). And all the other windows rules like, use another browser and the 100 other "rules". Then Ghost it when you've put all that work into it.
My networking skills were never so hot but other than that, it takes me 20 hours to perfect a Windows install from bare metal to Enlightenment LOL. So once it's ghosted you're always 5 minutes away from rolling it back.

As for Antivirus: that's a tough one and my strategy is to manually scan for rootkits and everything else but use Avast to scan what's coming in and going out after that, meaning tell the AV to exclude most .exes every time you run it.

Windows limited advantage is how easy it is to ghost an image, to where if you know you're going to be offline and have a major production, it's as quick to re-image as to uninstall the Antivirus. Scanning pictures to digitize is a huge pain when you've got AV on. Or a large multitrack audio session and unless you specify different the AV wants to scan everything you're accessing.

On that tangent, you can see how and why I'm very excited Reaper is going into Linux. I think there are builds if you search "land o leet Reaper" it will result a site owned by "cockos" and you'll find recent builds. My Reaper is paid but I go there for beta builds, and you'll notice it's stipulated not to link to them, whch is why I didn't.

Back to what bodhi was saying about drivers: no respectable studio lacks Reaper right now. It will do some things the much more expensive trackers can't and is the perfect compliment of any higher end DAW like Studio One for Windows (ProTools is slipping), Logic for OSX, or whatever. I may as well plug the product while I'm here.

The headquarters for REAPER and I hope you all consider it for Linux. Amazing aye? :-)

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2019 01:09PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> Back to what bodhi was saying about drivers: no respectable studio lacks Reaper right now.
>
I don't do Audio thing, except music. By music, I meant piano scores. In this case, I use musecore on my Linux desktop. Regardless, I don't know if this Ubuntu Studio will help or not.