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Is it possible to use my laptop components (display, touchpad, keyboard, audio in/out etc) as peripheral to a desktop computer? Ideal usage scenario is following:

  1. Linux is on laptop and workstation
  2. Laptop and workstation are connected through thunderbolt/usb3/4 link
  3. After connecting the link I press some key combination on the laptop and the OS switches to bridge mode, mounts/presents laptop components as peripherals to the workstation.

The reason why I might need this king of weird setup is requirement in powerful mobile computation resources without buying bulky laptops. I can use 14-inch small laptop for browsing/lightweight development, and connect e.g. HP Z2 Mini G4 Workstation on demand, which is quite small, powerful and mobile, but requires peripherals. In addition it allows to upgrade hardware independently, and maybe even gaming(?). After researching I found some related questions 1, 2 that partially answers this topic but all them proposes desktop sharing over network, which is not acceptable for me. Does recently developed technologies such as Thunderbolt allows the described setup? I think If there are external GPUs which are connected via thunderbolt it should be possible to redirect incoming video stream from external device to laptops display.

EDIT: The idea is similar to usbip. It allows to share usb devices over the network and present as a local device. The solution I'm looking for suggests to:

  1. Change transport from TCP/IP to Thunderbolt/USB3/USB4
  2. Extend device list to display, audio in/out etc
Islam Sabyrgaliyev
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2 Answers2

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No, you cannot do this. This is not how the operating system and connections are designed to work. It is possible to share disk/RAM/CPU power, but this more advanced. I recommend looking up compute clusters & distributed computing for more information on that.

Keltari
  • 75,447
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You can try to use Remote Desktop Software just for using your laptop peripherals(keyboard, touchpad, audio in/out). Some of them available on Linux and working fine. Connect your laptop to workstation, use laptops' peripherals to manipulate with workstation and desktop display as output device.

SmilingKnight
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