Two Computers: Dividing the Workload

In this post, as part of my New Year's housecleaning, I introduce several investigations, involving various ways of setting up two computers in a workspace.

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KVMs and Monitor-Sharing Options

I had developed the habit of working with two computers, using a KVM switch so I needed only one mouse and keyboard.  A KVM switch would let me use just one monitor with two computers:  it would be showing me what was happening on the computer that the mouse and keyboard were then connected to.

I had two monitors.  I didn't have them connected to the KVM.  Instead, I connected them directly to the two computers, one for each.  So the KVM switch would have me working on computer A or computer B, but monitor A would continue to show what was happening on computer A, and monitor B would continue to display the state of things on computer B.

Actually, one KVM had started malfunctioning, and I had replaced it with another.  In the process, I decided to disconnect the mouse from the KVM too.  So now the KVM just controlled the keyboard.  It made sense:  the keyboard was big.  I couldn't fit two keyboards on my desktop.  But I could fit two mice.  Mouse A, on the left side, was controlled by my left hand, and was controlling computer A, while mouse B was preoccupied with computer B on my right.  I wasn't sure if I liked this arrangement.  It had its advantages.  It gave my hands a more equal workout.  I could glance over at the other computer and click something, to make some process move ahead, without having to hit ScrollLock twice, which was how the KVM switched the keyboard back and forth.  The main problem was that it was hard to tell which computer the keyboard was controlling at any given time.  I was still occasionally hitting the Del key and deleting things on computer A and wondering why they weren't disappearing from monitor B.  It was a bit nutty.  But I was adapting and, like I say, it had its advantages, at least until I worked out something better.

The monitor situation was OK, too.  I had widescreen monitors, so I was able to accommodate a couple of different open windows at the same time on each of them.  But there were times when it would have been helpful to have both monitors attuned to just one computer.  I had previously used an arrangement where monitor A was dedicated to computer A, but monitor B was connected to a second KVM switch, so I could reach up and punch the button and switch monitor B back and forth between computer A and computer B.  This would let me use a multiple monitor approach on computer A, so as to spread out my work.  The problem with this was that, when there was no monitor turned on to computer B, I tended not to use it.  That was a problem because the purpose of having two computers was to let me continue to work when one of them would crash or need maintenance or get involved in some process, like scanning or rendering, that would make it virtually unavailable for other purposes.  I also used this arrangement to write these blog posts, tinkering with one machine and recording the steps in the other.  I found that, if I got too fixated on one computer, the other one tended not to be organized and capable enough to take over when I needed it.

There didn't seem to be a way to share one monitor between two computers simultaneously, with computer B running in a little window in the corner -- a real "monitor" as distinct from a big display.  There was the option of buying a little display, connecting it to the second DVI connector on computer B, and putting it off to the side, so I would always have that information about what was happening on computer B.  But that little monitor would cost more than $100.  I could probably go down to Goodwill and pick up an old CRT for less than $10, but the other problem was that it would still be more clutter, more heat, more power consumption.  And the desk didn't have room for it, so it would have to go onto a side table or shelf or something.  I would also need a video card, since my motherboard only supported one monitor.

A decision on that question of how to use multiple monitors would await the outcome of an investigation of various non-KVM strategies.

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Dual-Booting and Virtual Machines

Over the past couple of years, my two computers had different missions.  Computer A was running Windows XP in a VMware virtual machine on Ubuntu.  Computer B was running WinXP natively.  Now I was moving away from Ubuntu and back to Windows.  I had planned to just install Windows 7 on both.  I'd been having problems with my WinXP installation on computer B, even when I restored from an image, so it seemed like a good time to upgrade rather than continue to fight it.

I liked the idea of dual-booting WinXP and Win7.  Actually, though, I rarely used my dual-boot setups.  I pretty much always went with one or the other.  Right now, for instance, I already had a dual-boot Ubuntu and WinXP setup on computer B, but I couldn't remember the last time I had gone into Ubuntu there.

Meanwhile, on computer A, it seemed like I should consider just replacing Ubuntu with Win7:  continue to run WinXP in a virtual machine (VM), that is, but run it on Windows 7 instead of Ubuntu.  This would give me access to the familiar way of doing things in WinXP, while easing the transition to Win7.  I looked into the VM option in more detail.  It looked like I would be able to use the Windows version of VMware Workstation as long as I wasn't using my Workstation license in Ubuntu.  So the tentative plan was to have WinXP running in VMware on Win7 on one machine, while just running Windows (either XP or 7) natively (i.e., without a VM) on the other.

Although I was moving away from Ubuntu, it occurred to me that this strategy would leave a door open for a possible return to Ubuntu.  Ubuntu had been far more stable than WinXP.  Assuming the virtualization setup worked, I could install Ubuntu as a VM on Win7, essentially reversing what I had tried to do previously, and I could thus continue to identify projects and programs that Ubuntu could handle just as well as Windows for my purposes.

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Differences Between Machines

The decisions described above meant that, contrary to my assumptions, I probably should not set up identical hardware on both computers.  Computer A was probably going to need more muscle to handle the VMs.  WinXP on computer B had been struggling to run video editing software, though that may have been due to a flawed installation.

Part of the tradeoff here was simplicity versus options.  The more operating systems and hardware arrangements I had in play, the more different ways I had of configuring things, and the more time it would take.  I had always viewed the computer hobbying as a means to an end of being more productive, while having its own intrinsic interest too, and for that reason I had tended to think, in recent years, in terms of getting myself set up for the next six months or a year.  During that kind of timeframe, the problems of a setup would tend to emerge and sometimes become overwhelming.  The current Windows XP installation was a case in point.  I had been able to nurse it along despite its obvious dysfunctionality, occasionally replacing its current state with an Acronis image backup, but it was now crashing one or more times per day.  So, oddly, in this case it was the simpler installation that had become the more problematic.

The switch from Windows XP to Windows 7 probably meant that I would be spending quite a bit of time getting up to speed on the best way to configure the latter.  I was probably going to install it in a RAID array, for purposes of performance, with an external backup option.  There would be some things to figure out and play with.  Most likely, some hardware would be getting shuffled around.  So, contrary to my first thoughts during this particular housecleaning, it did not appear likely that the two computers would take on any clear definition:  they would not be mirror images of one another, in hardware terms, so as to simplify maintenance, and they would also not feature one being considerably more powerful than the other.  The plan for the coming six months to a year was just to make them both capable and to explore options without investing more time than I wanted to spare for this kind of project.

Since I was now in a period of computer housecleaning, it seemed likely that my posts over the next few weeks would explore these considerations in more detail.