Use Your iMac as a Display
Posted by Francis Avila on May 28, 2008
I have an Intel iMac (the white kind). It’s my personal machine. I like it. It’s nice. What I especially like about it is that it has a big screen (1680×1050).
I also have an Intel MacBook. It’s my work machine. I like it. It’s nice. But what I don’t like about it is that the screen is a bit smaller than my iMac (1200×800). Using the smaller keyboard and mouse isn’t so nice either.
What to do?
Well, there’s VNC. OS X even has a VNC server built in. So I could turn that on and then use a VNC client on my iMac. But that only gives me the keyboard and mouse and a 1280×800 window mirroring the MacBook screen. Not cool.
The same guy who makes this excellent VNC client also makes ScreenRecycler. ScreenRecycler turns your VNC client into an attached display. The monitor of the computer your VNC client runs on looks to OS X like just another monitor, plugged in through the mini-DVI port. So now I can work on my MacBook and have a 1680×1050 screen in addition. Joy!
But ScreenRecycler ignores input from the VNC client, so I can’t use my iMac’s keyboard and mouse to control my MacBook. No joy.
But some other guy on the internet makes Transport. Transport lets you control other Macs using your keyboard and mouse. Joy has returned!
So, the plan:
- Install and run ScreenRecycler and Transport on the MacBook.
- Install and run JollysFastVNC and Transport on the iMac.
- The VNC client finds ScreenRecycler via Bonjour. No sweat.
- On the MacBook, tell Teleport to “Share this Mac.”
All done! Now I can use my iMac as a second display to my MacBook and control my MacBook with my iMac. (I can even make the iMac the MacBook’s main display!) Using the power of Spaces, I can even have multiple workspaces, and keep (for example) Mail and iChat permanently displayed in the MacBook screen, no matter what workspace I’m in.
A caveat: Transport doesn’t seem to recognize the ScreenRecycler display, at least when one machine is Panther (iMac) and the other Leopard (MacBook). You have to arrange your virtual screens in Transport in such a way that they don’t share the same borders. Otherwise your pointer will get stuck on the MacBook.
Comments
I’ve been trying to do exactly the same thing.
I’m going to give your method a go. Thanks
Photo Sharing January 17, 2009
Dear Francis – I have an iMac G5 (iSight, pre-Intel) and a new PowerBook Pro. I’m wondering what cable to use to connect the two Macs for using my iMac as a display. Thanks very much, Barbara
Barbara July 17, 2009
This solution works over the network, so all your need is that both your macs to be on the same network. If you use a wireless connection, you may not need any cable at all. Otherwise, a standard ethernet cable (Cat 5/5e/6) will work.
Francis Avila August 29, 2009
I followed you instructiosn and now my iMac keyboard and mouse control both my imac (powerMac , Leopard, I got the old pre-intel version of teleport) and Macbook Pro (intel, Snow Leopard). But only my cursor goes from screen to screen. I cannot move finder windows or application windows from one screen to the others (I actually have 2 screen connected to my imac, both of them recognized by Teleport.
You say “I can even make the iMac the MacBook’s main display!”. How do you do that?
What I really want is running Adobe lightroom on my Macbook (twice as fast) but display the application on my Imac screen (much better). Any suggestions?
Jean November 5, 2009
Read the article more carefully: Teleport just handles the keyboard and mouse; you still need ScreenRecycler and a VNC client to share your screen.
To change your Mac’s main display (i.e., which display has the doc and menu bar): after you have two displays showing up in the display preferences, drag the white bar at the top of the little screens to the screen you want to be the main display.
This ScreenRecycler solution is not going to be very good for very graphically intense use like watching videos or editing photos. This is because it has to push that extra screen through the network, which is always going to be a lot slower than a direct connection to a monitor. The colors on the shared display will be a little off and its image will have compression artifacts, aside from taking noticeable milliseconds to update.
I spend most of my day writing code in text editors, so this solution is fine for me. But if you’re doing serious graphical editing, you probably need a real screen.
Francis Avila November 10, 2009