Re: [SAGE] DTE: PCMCIA card which emulates a monitor?

[Richard Chycoski <rski@chycoski.com>]

I'd hoped that this would work as well. I've used KVM-to-IP devices to 
remote a console, and while these would work for the intended 
application it would be troublesome to configure the network on the 
laptop just for this purpose when needed. The boxes that I've used 
weren't cheap, and require external power. At that point I might as well 
acquire a small LCD monitor and keyboard to use.

If anyone finds the silver bullet at some time in the future - please 
ping the list!

- Richard

Joseph Noonan wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 at 11:48pm Ted Nolan wrote:
>>
>> You may recall that some months ago, I was looking for what amounted 
>> to, though I couldn't think to frame it this way, a virtual 1 seat 
>> KVM switch that could be run from a laptop.
>
> Yes, and I read the thread with a lot of interest (hope?), because 
> I've looked at my notebook on a table or floor in a server room and 
> thought: "I've got a 15" flat panel, a keyboard and a mouse, but lets 
> go get a monitor and keyboard to plug into headless over there".  I 
> wish notebooks at least had a connector that would let you use the 
> built in display as a standalone monitor -- but I guess that's not 
> going to happen. Sigh.
>
>
>> That particular card seemed not to exist, but I did get some pointers
>> to a possible alternate, the KVM2USB box from Epiphan :
>>
>> www.epiphan.com/products/product.php?pid=27&gclid=CLPWlej7u4oCFQImUAodVUsXPg 
>>
>>
>> It was a bit pricier than what I had in mind, but I decided I would 
>> get one
>> and check it out.  I finally had the occasion to use it recently, and
>> I'm afraid I have to say I'm not too impressed.
>
> I bought the overpriced POS[1] myself and have had exactly zero 
> success with it.  I've tried that crappy software with 3 different 
> notebooks (Dell D610, d620, D520), and with several (Dell) servers 
> varying in age from 5 years to 3 mos ago, an old DEC/Compaq Alpha, a 
> couple of misc. whitebox PC's and even another notebook I was 
> configuring but didn't want on my desk.  Work with none of them well 
> enough to do a bare metal install.
>
>
>> What you get is a box with a CD, the actuall KVM2USB box, a USB cable
>> and the VGA/kbd/mouse pigtail.
>>
>> The KVM2USB box is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and is 
>> entirely
>> powered through the USB connection.  It seemes reasonably well made and
>> robust (the case is metal).  It may in fact be a fine piece of 
>> equipment.
>
> Agreed -- it really seems to be nicely built.
>
>
>> The software, unfortunately, is otherwise.  First, the CD that comes 
>> with
>> the device is stamped as a driver CD, but when you put it in the drive,
>> all it does is start an IE session to the Ephiphan web site, from where
>> you are expected to download the real drivers.  I don't per se have any
>> problem with a company saying up-front, go to our site to make sure you
>> have the latest stuff, but you shouldn't label that as a driver CD.  In
>> this case, I had taken out my WI-FI card to put in a USB2 card to hitch
>> the KVM2USB to, so .. no Internet.  I don't want to overstate the 
>> difficulty:
>> I was at home, not in the only server closet in Burkina Faso or anything
>> like that, but it did irritate me.
>
> I had exactly the same reaction. "That is NOT a driver disk".
>
>
>> Second, I had a lot of problems actually installing the drivers when 
>> I did
>> get them downloaded (Windows only, of course).  I don't know exactly 
>> what
>> was going on.  I finally changed my store brand USB2 card for an Adaptec
>> USB2 card and got it working, but I can't say for sure that actually had
>> anything to do with it (Win XP was happy enough with the store brand 
>> card
>> for everything else I've ever tried with it).  The driver installs as
>> a hidden device in Device Manager, the first time I've ever seen that..
>> Anyway, after several tries and unexpected re-occurances of "found new
>> hardware", and manual driver unloading, it finally settled down.
>
> I didn't have this kind of trouble with the drivers, but I was using 
> the built in USB ports on the recent-ish Dells mentioned above, not an 
> addon card, so maybe that was it.
>
>> Third, the actual application is not good at all.
>
> Correction: it is a complete piece of crap.  I have NEVER been able to 
> successfully interrupt a server while it was booting using that app.  
> Not once.
>
>> Once you get the driver installed, you can start the console 
>> application and all appears well:  a window opens with the boot 
>> screen of the PC you are hitched to.  As various parts of the boot 
>> sequence clear the screen on the subject PC, the application resises 
>> the window, and retunes its VGA capture parameters.  That's annoying 
>> as it goes completely blank each time it recalculates, but livable.
>
> Agreed.
>
>
>> What is not livable is the KVM part of the application.  By default,
>> you are just an observer of the screen, but you can select a menu to
>> "Enter KVM Mode" at which point your mouse and keyboard are supposed to
>> be mapped through to the PC at the far end.  Unfortunately this doesn't
>> work well at all.  I can speak for the mouse support, as the remote PC
>> was a FreeBSD box, and I didn't need anything more than a text mode
>> console, but the keyboard emulation was miserable.  I suppose there may
>> be something strange about my laptop, which is an old (IBM era)
>> Thinkpad, but it seems vanilla enough.  I found that while some control
>> characters would go thorugh OK (like ^Z for suspend), ^C would not.
>> Also the application appeared to be trapping the ALT key and not
>> sending it through, and sending through the arrow keys worked only
>> intermittently.  Sometimes, like old versions of VNC, everything would
>> get into a wierd state and the keystrokes passed through seemed to have
>> nothing to do with what I was typing.  Randomly hitting shift, CTRL &
>> ALT would eventually get it back into a working state.  If you didn't
>> type anything for a while it would stop listening to you, and you would
>> have to reset the app to KVM mode (or in some cases, restart the whole
>> app).  Eventually I just gave up on it and got out another keyboard
>> (keeping the VGA capture as my monitor though).
>
> You have very accurately summarized my experience.  I can't figure out 
> what kind of system the developers ever tested this against as it has 
> been 100% useless for doing any kind of bare metal loading of servers.
>
>
>> Looking at the Epiphan manual, they are all about VGA capture, and KVM
>> is a couple of paragraphs of afterthought.  I also must say, in 
>> fairness,
>> that I never attempted to contact their tech support.  Perhaps they 
>> could
>> have resolved all my problems straight-away.  I felt it more likely 
>> however,
>> that this would probably take far longer than just getting out a 
>> keyboard.
>
> Exactly.  I gave this thing one more try on a trip to a remote office 
> just a couple of weeks ago and ended up stealing a KVM port from 
> another server because I really did need to get the server installed 
> before leaving later that day.
>
> On another note, I recently discovered this:
>
>     <http://www.kvm-switches-online.com/0su70028.html>
>
> and I'm going to try one of these.  I figure I can use an extra 
> cardbus 10/100 that I carry with me anyway and a crossover cable and 
> get the desired effect.  We'll see.
>
>
>
> thx,
>
> -j
>
>
> [1] Doesn't mean "point of sale"
>
>