Hey I just recently got my hands on a second monitor and going through rebuilding my desk setup. My main goal is to move my desktop to the other side of my desk (about 3 feet away from where my monitors are); but my cables currently I’d have to extend them. Whilst I was looking at how long I need the extension cables to it; I realize I’d also want to be able to use my new setup with my laptop and server as I had done before.
Typically what I do is just literally leave out a spare HDMI/VGA cable in my original monitor (main desktop used DP), connect it and my usb kvm, and finally switch the inputs over to the second machine manually. This worked fine with the single monitor (and it being close to my desktop) but now that I have two monitors (especially the desktop move); I worry it’s gonna leave an absolute mess of wires and makes it complicated to perform the monitor/usb switching.
I’m wondering what’s the best KVM (or anything else) I can get for my setup:
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My main PC’s OS is NixOS with KDE Plasma 6.7 (maybe moving to Niri)
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The brand new monitor’s a HyperX Omen 27q: set to 2560×1440@120hz (I think the wayland drivers are capping it at 120 or it could be literally because I have it daisy-chained to the old monitor via DP). If it’s necessary, I could also directly connect the new monitor to my main desktop via HDMI. Would like to run it at 240hz but 120hz is fine too
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Old monitor’s a ViewSonic VG2249: connected via DP->Mini DP; It’s capped at 60hz.. nothing super fancy unlike the new one
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Have a couple of USBs, mainly my keyboard and mouse, and sometimes a little usb stick or two; currently I have a little USB KVM to switch the USB ports between my desktop and laptop
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My work laptop I don’t have it connected all the time; just when I need to work remotely (and that has HDMI + Thunderbolt4). I use this little USB C Hub to connect to the display
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I have a little tiny headless server that has a HDMI; don’t need the high refresh and such, just the basics. It also runs NixOS
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I also have a Framework 13 AMD 7040 series; it has a HDMI on it. Another one that runs NixOS with the same DE as my desktops
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The most computers I have plugged in at a time is two (my desktop ofc and one of the other 3 machines I mentioned)
I’m pretty new to the higher level display game, please excuse the ignorance! 