A while back I purchased a refurbished Dell PowerEdge R710 for OpenStack learning purposes. For a couple of months now, it's been sitting idle -- a waste of 16GB of RAM + 2.33 GHz processor!

I thought about turning it into a work desktop but it is in a separate room for noise issues. I installed NoMachine and NX server for remote desktop from my Mac, but the session is quite choppy and not very useful. The idea is to leverage the RAM and CPU and make it a stand-alone desktop for work (including web browsing, etc).

Another way is of course an extra long VGA cable + wireless mouse/usb. But I wanted to see if anyone has had any luck with wireless monitors.

Distance (point to point) is about 15 feet but there is a wall in between.

I wouldn't go with wireless monitors unless you really need the screen far from the unit.
If not, they lose signal and are a lot less reliable.
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Marius
outsource your software development

After 14ft vga starts ghosting. you can use hdmi as it goes longer.

You can use bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo. Bluetooth goes about 30ft. For this will have to buy a usb bluetooth adapter to be able to communicate with the mouse and keyboard. There are probably specific ones that will work in linux. Someone else may be able to shed more light on exactly what to do here, as I haven't done this before.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bluetooth

They have radio based keyboard and mice that work OK. Depending on the wall of course.

I've used the vga over a cat type cable and it is OK for video. Be sure to make note that the cable isn't wired like a 802.

They are kind of expensive.