Connect tower on laptop?!

[pinhodecarlos]

Here's the deal. I want to buy a new computer without monitor, keyboard and mouse. I have at home one laptop with VGA and HDMI output, network output.
How can I use my laptop screen on the tower?
Can I use a KVM switch?
Is there a way to input video on my laptop?! Or should I buy a monitor?

Need some help.

Thank you in advance,

Carlos

[blip]

Use RDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol

[ET_]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Here's the deal. I want to buy a new computer without monitor, keyboard and mouse. I have at home one laptop with VGA and HDMI output, network output.
How can I use my laptop screen on the tower?
Can I use a KVM switch?
Is there a way to input video on my laptop?! Or should I buy a monitor?

Need some help.

Thank you in advance,

Carlos

Hi Carlos, I had the same problem, and I resolved it installing VNC server on the headless computer: this way I can use a VNC client to viualize the desktop of the headless tower.

It just takes a network switch to connect the 2 machines: no cables whatsoever around!

PM me if you need some help.

Luigi

[pinhodecarlos]

The machine will come without a monitor so how can I install the OS?

[ewmayer]

I've been using my macbook as a connect to my tower since buying it - it's one of the barebones SandyBridge/Linux systems Mike/Xyzzy put up for sake in late 2012. Mike preconfigured the system's network setup so I just needed to do some basic gateway-setup on my Mac. I just plug the ethernet cable into the mac when I need to connect, which is perhaps once a week to test new AVX code, which I can write and do basic compile tests of on the mac, even though it's a pre-AVX Core2 system.

When I upgraded the guts of the tower to Haswell last summer i ran into some issues setting up the new system's networking, which took some local-expert help to work through. But all is well since.

But BIOS/OS-install stuff you'll need to at least borrow an LCD - mine is back in its box, only comes out on the rare occasions when I want to fiddle with the BIOS.

Which OS are you running (or planning to run)?

[blip]

Which OS are you planning to use?
I guess, you need at least once a monitor and keyboard to fire up the system.
Usually, we install new systems with FAI http://fai-project.org/. But that requires some preparation.

[henryzz]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

The machine will come without a monitor so how can I install the OS?

Check your tv and see if it has a compatible port.

[pinhodecarlos]

Can either be Win 7 or Linux (Ubuntu). It will mainly run LLR 5*2^n-1 for n<6M.
By the comments I see I need at least for one time to borrow a LCD for OS install so I might use the lab and then bring by taxi the tower home.
Or maybe I will ask the lab owner to store my machine on the server room so I don't bring the machine home. At least on the server room it has A/C.

Thank you guys.

Carlos

[pinhodecarlos]

Originally Posted by henryzz

Check your tv and see if it has a compatible port.

I don't have a TV at home and I don't pretend to buy one while I do my PhD in Brazil. It is a waste of money. TV channels sucks here and TV LCD's are very expensive for the scholarship I am earning.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Here's the deal. I want to buy a new computer without monitor, keyboard and mouse. I have at home one laptop with VGA and HDMI output, network output.
How can I use my laptop screen on the tower?
Can I use a KVM switch?
Is there a way to input video on my laptop?! Or should I buy a monitor?

Need some help.

Thank you in advance,

Carlos

I have a 4-port KVM. One of the best investment I made....
That was until I got the 5th computer :)

1 keyboard; 1 mouse; 1 monitor....sweet.