Synergy

Synergy is a keyboard and mouse sharing app. Use the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad of one computer to control nearby computers, and work seamlessly between them.

This project contains the source code for Synergy 1 Community Edition which is actively maintained, free to use, and does not require a license or serial key.

Wayland support: Wayland now has experimental support (GNOME 46 is required, KDE TBD).

To use the community edition, install the synergy package with your favorite package manager or build it yourself using the Developer Quick Start instructions below.

Goals and Philosophy

Version 1.15 brings a new philosophy of being more approachable to the open-source community instead of wholly focusing on commercial interests. We still have customers to support the development of the code, but we are committed to maintaining and improving Synergy 1 Community Edition for years to come and we're excited to work with the community to improve the code for the benefit of everyone.

Operating Systems

We support all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Unix-like BSD-derived.

All Linux distributions are supported, primarily focusing on: Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, RHEL, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Arch Linux, openSUSE, Gentoo.

Supported Unix-like BSD-derived operating systems: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD.

Ways to get involved

Here are a few ways to join in with the project and get involved:

• Compile the latest master version (see below) and report a bug
• Submit a PR (pull request) with a bug fix or improvement
• Let us know if you have an idea for an improvement

Where to get help

• Join us on Discord or Slack (#open-source channel)
• Start a discussion on our GitHub project
• Read the wiki for guides and info

Developer Quick Start

How to build Synergy 1 Community Edition. Check the Developer Guide wiki page if you have problems.

1. Dependencies:

Windows:

python scripts/install_deps.py

macOS/Linux:

./scripts/install_deps.py

2. Configure:

Windows:

cmake -B build --preset=windows-release

macOS:

cmake -B build --preset=macos-release

Linux:

cmake -B build --preset=linux-release

3. Build:

cmake --build build -j8

4. Test:

./build/bin/unittests

How to install (packages)

Synergy 1 Community Edition is packaged by the community (status shown below).

Synergy 2 is no longer in development and we recommend that package maintainers do not provide it.

Synergy 3 and Synergy 1 (licensed) are available to download from the official packages.

Community edition:

Windows:

choco install synergy

macOS:

brew install synergy

Debian, Ubuntu, etc:

sudo apt install synergy

Fedora, Red Hat, etc:

sudo dnf install synergy

Arch, Manjaro, etc:

sudo pacman -S synergy

Package Maintainers

Synergy is already available through most package managers as synergy, and we would love to see the latest version of Synergy 1 Community Edition on every package manager for every OS we support (Windows, macOS, Linux, Unix-like BSD-derived, etc).

Package maintainers can use scripts/package.py to see how we build packages, but most package maintainers will create a packaging script rather than use our scripts (which is fine by us). If you're a package maintainer and have a question, please get in touch.

Good packages:

• Fedora
• Arch Linux
• FreeBSD
• Homebrew
• Gentoo
• openSUSE

Broken packages:

• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Chocolatey

It appears that the synergy package has been removed or discontinued from some package repositories. There are many reasons why this may happen, but sometimes if a package maintainer steps down or leaves the project without finding a replacement, the package might lose support, leading to its removal. This can also happen when there are difficulties updating the package to the latest version, and communication has broken down between the package maintainer and the upstream developers. If you're a package maintainer and would like to bring the synergy package back to life, please get in touch if you need our help.

FAQ

Has Synergy moved beyond its goals from the 1.x era?

Our goal for Synergy 1 (including the community edition) has always been and will always be to make a simple, reliable, and feature-rich mouse and keyboard-sharing tool. We do maintain another product called Synergy 3, but as this uses Synergy 1 Core (the server and client part of Synergy), we depend on Synergy 1 to remain stable and modern which is why we continue to develop and improve the product.

If I want to solve issues in Synergy do I need to contribute to a fork?

We welcome PRs (pull requests) from the community. If you'd like to make a change, please feel free to start a discussion or open a PR. It's great that people spin up rebranded forks of Synergy, power to them. However, it's not necessary if you want to make changes. If you're thinking of starting your own rebranded fork of Synergy, it might be because we're doing something wrong so please let us know what we can do to let you feel welcome in our community.

Is clipboard sharing supported?

Absolutely. The clipboard-sharing feature is a cornerstone feature of the product and we are committed to maintaining and improving that feature.

Is Wayland for Linux supported?

Yes! Wayland (the Linux display server protocol aimed to become the successor of the X Window System) is an important platform for us. The libei and libportal libraries enable Wayland support for Synergy. We would like to give special thanks to Peter Hutterer (@whot), who is the author of libei, a major contributor to libportal, and the author of the Wayland implementation in Synergy. Others such as Olivier Fourdan helped with the Wayland implementation, and we rely on the work of our community of developers to continue the development of Wayland support.

Where did it all start?

Synergy was first created in 2001 by Chris Schoeneman. Read about the history of the project on our Wiki.

Repology

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