• PeachMan@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    It’s good for critical systems that you might need to reboot and do things like see the BIOS (which you can’t see if you’re using a normal VNC-type remote access solution). It’s probably not necessary for most setups, but it can be very useful in certain situations. I made one myself, then literally never used it, and I’m now using that Pi in a different project.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      I made one myself, then literally never used it

      This is exactly my fear 😆

    • skadden@ctrlaltelite.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I thought about setting one up for my main server because every time the power went out I’d have to reconfigure the bios for boot order, virtualization, and a few other settings.

      I’ve since added a UPS to the mix but ultimately the fix was replacing the cmos battery lol. Had I put one of these together it would be entirely unused these days.

      It’s a neat concept and if you need remote bios access it’s great, but people usually overestimate how useful that really is.

      • PeachMan@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Right, a KVM’s usefulness is narrow and you’re ideally using it as a sort of backup to a backup of critical systems. That means you usually only hear about them in server environments, and that means that sysadmins pay a LOT of money for enterprise-grade KVMs.

        But it’s very cool that we can build a dirt cheap, half-decent KVM out of a Pi nowadays. I might have just left mine running if I there wasn’t a Pi shortage; I wanted that Pi for other stuff.