use old laptop as monitor and terminal
Monday, May 31, 2010
I have just had a new Mac Mini arrive that I want to use for mostly automated and headless tasks. But I also want to use this as a home computer for my wife, but it has no screen and no mic, plus not much room on the bench where it lives to fit a keyboard and mouse. My wife has a decrepit (no battery; no harddrive) laptop she's been using, so hey, why not use that as a terminal?
Laptop is running puppy linux (4.3.1). Great little lightweight distro. It boots off CD and uses a USB key for storage.
- Installed tightvnc-client
Mac is running Snow Leopard
So by setting up the script below as a menu option (add to ~/.jwmrc), all she has to do is click it, and the connection begins, including sending all mic input sound (via dd with /dev/dsp) through an audio cable from laptop's headphone jack to Mac's input jack, registering as input on the Mac (Skype-ho!).
Beauty
[caveat: I cannot be held responsible for damage to hardware caused by plugging hardware into each other. Headphone jacks are pretty low voltage though, as I understand it, and it's worked for me]
#!/bin/sh
echo 'Hi, this is how to connect to the Mac Mini'
echo
echo 'Testing for network connection'
if ping -w 2 192.168.1.1 > /dev/null; then
echo ":) Found the router, we're connected already"
else
echo 'Here comes the Network Wizard to connect to the network. You know what to do...'
echo
echo -n 'Press enter once the network is done...'
net-setup.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
read resp
fi
echo
if ping -w 2 192.168.1.9 > /dev/null; then
echo ":) Mac is on, we're ready to connect"
else
echo 'Check the Mac is on. Look for the little white light on the front'
echo -n "Press enter when happy it's on. If only just turned on then wait a minute before continuing..."
read resp
fi
echo
if ps -ef | grep "[d]d if"; then
echo ':) Sound loopback for mic already running'
else
echo 'Ok, starting the sound loopback so we can send the mic to Mac'
dd if=/dev/dsp | dd of=/dev/dsp &
fi
echo
echo 'Right, about to start the connection'
echo "Enter '***' below as the password and you're good to go!"
echo
vncviewer 192.168.1.9:5900 -fullscreen