Keyboard & Mouse Sharing with Fedora Linux
tl;dr
I recently did a fresh install of Fedora 40 on a desktop and struggled to get keyboard & mouse sharing working. Hopefully these sparse notes can help someone else out, but in the end I’m now using Deskflow (which is apparently now the upstream project for Synergy) to serve keyboard & mouse and an older version of Barrier that just happens to still work as a client
Products mentioned in this document:
Path I took here
Synergy => Barrier => input-leap => Deskflow/Barrier
I’ve been using kvm software for years and for the longest time Synergy was the standout product. I don’t recall exactly when, but Barrier replaced it and Barrier worked great. But I guess development had stalled so it was forked to input-leap at some point. This is pretty vague, but I remember upgrading Fedora somewhere within the last few releases and Barrier just didn’t exist anymore (at least not in the repos). Some brief online searching brought me to input-leap and I’d honestly just started to remember what it’s called when low and behold, when I installed Fedora 40, it just started crashing when clicking the Configure button.
There does appear to be a fix in place, but I guess it wasn’t merged upstream. So I decided to build from source. I’m going to share my build-from-source experience, but spoiler alert, it didn’t end up working after all was said and done.
Build input-leap from source
Download input-leap source
git clone https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap.git
Run the clean_build.sh script
./clean_build.sh
Fix dependency errors
First error: can’t find Qt6Config
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:78 (find_package):
By not providing "FindQt6.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project has
asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by "Qt6", but
CMake did not find one.
Could not find a package configuration file provided by "Qt6" with any of
the following names:
Qt6Config.cmake
qt6-config.cmake
Add the installation prefix of "Qt6" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set "Qt6_DIR"
to a directory containing one of the above files. If "Qt6" provides a
separate development package or SDK, be sure it has been installed.
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
I had to download the Qt development kit and signup
chmod +x qt-online-installer-linux-x64-4.8.1.run
./qt-online-installer-linux-x64-4.8.1.run
- Selected Desktop Development option
- It installed to ~/Qt
export Qt6_DIR="/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64"
This fixed the Qt6Config error
However …
Second error: can’t find avahi-compat-libdns_sd
-- Checking for module 'avahi-compat-libdns_sd'
-- Package 'avahi-compat-libdns_sd', required by 'virtual:world', not found
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:645 (message):
The following required packages were not found:
- avahi-compat-libdns_sd
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:873 (_pkg_check_modules_internal)
CMakeLists.txt:157 (pkg_check_modules)
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
If I install avahi-compat-libdns_sd, I get the same error, so where is it … oh wait …
sudo dnf install avahi-compat-libdns_sd avahi-compat-libdns_sd-devel
… needs the devel package facepalm, duh.
Third error
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:645 (message):
The following required packages were not found:
- x11
- xext
- xrandr
- xinerama
- xtst
- xi
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:873 (_pkg_check_modules_internal)
CMakeLists.txt:163 (pkg_check_modules)
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
sudo dnf install libX11-devel libXext-devel libXrandr-devel libXinerama-devel libXtst-devel libXi-devel
Fourth error
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:645 (message):
The following required packages were not found:
- ice
- sm
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:873 (_pkg_check_modules_internal)
CMakeLists.txt:164 (pkg_check_modules)
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
sudo dnf install libICE-devel libSM-devel
Fifth error
Make Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:233 (message):
Could NOT find OpenSSL, try to set the path to OpenSSL root folder in the
system variable OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR (missing: OPENSSL_CRYPTO_LIBRARY
OPENSSL_INCLUDE_DIR SSL Crypto) (Required is at least version "1.1.1")
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:603 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
/usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindOpenSSL.cmake:689 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
CMakeLists.txt:258 (find_package)
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
sudo dnf install openssl-devel
Sixth and final error
CMake Warning at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/CMakeFindDependencyMacro.cmake:76 (find_package):
Found package configuration file:
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6Gui/Qt6GuiConfig.cmake
but it set Qt6Gui_FOUND to FALSE so package "Qt6Gui" is considered to be
NOT FOUND. Reason given by package:
Qt6Gui could not be found because dependency WrapOpenGL could not be found.
Configuring with --debug-find-pkg=WrapOpenGL might reveal details why the
package was not found.
Configuring with -DQT_DEBUG_FIND_PACKAGE=ON will print the values of some
of the path variables that find_package uses to try and find the package.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6/QtPublicDependencyHelpers.cmake:145 (find_dependency)
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6Widgets/Qt6WidgetsDependencies.cmake:45 (_qt_internal_find_qt_dependencies)
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6Widgets/Qt6WidgetsConfig.cmake:43 (include)
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6/Qt6Config.cmake:190 (find_package)
src/gui/CMakeLists.txt:2 (find_package)
CMake Warning at /home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6/Qt6Config.cmake:190 (find_package):
Found package configuration file:
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6Widgets/Qt6WidgetsConfig.cmake
but it set Qt6Widgets_FOUND to FALSE so package "Qt6Widgets" is considered
to be NOT FOUND. Reason given by package:
Qt6Widgets could not be found because dependency Qt6Gui could not be found.
Configuring with --debug-find-pkg=Qt6Gui might reveal details why the
package was not found.
Configuring with -DQT_DEBUG_FIND_PACKAGE=ON will print the values of some
of the path variables that find_package uses to try and find the package.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
src/gui/CMakeLists.txt:2 (find_package)
CMake Error at src/gui/CMakeLists.txt:2 (find_package):
Found package configuration file:
/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6/Qt6Config.cmake
but it set Qt6_FOUND to FALSE so package "Qt6" is considered to be NOT
FOUND. Reason given by package:
Failed to find required Qt component "Widgets".
Expected Config file at
"/home/amercer/Qt/6.8.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt6Widgets/Qt6WidgetsConfig.cmake"
exists
Configuring with --debug-find-pkg=Qt6Widgets might reveal details why the
package was not found.
Configuring with -DQT_DEBUG_FIND_PACKAGE=ON will print the values of some
of the path variables that find_package uses to try and find the package.
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
I did two things:
sudo dnf install mesa-libGL-devel
and opened the Qt SDK and added the following components
- Qt => Build tools => Qt Installer Framework
- Qt Creator => Plugin Development
After all this, the package finally built.
Install input-leap
mkdir ~/.local/bin # (was a fresh install)
cp build/bin/input-leap* ~/.local/bin
input-leap
However, it would not work. Ports were open, I saw a client connect, matched sha fingerprints, but mouse would not switch between server & client no matter what I tried. So I stumbled across Deskflow and installed it
Install Deskflow
Worked very well out of the box except for one annoying issue:
but this is manageable and there are eyes on it.