Kiosk mode rasberry pi
Use a rasberry pi as a kiosk
I want to display a static copy of a webiste on a rasberry pi which does not have a network connection. These are my notes on getting everything to work.
Chromium
I need Chromium because I need Flash. I need flash because the website is basically one huge, painful flash animation
It was a little hard to track down an ARM build of chromium. Unfortunetly
apt-get chromium-browser doesn’t just work.
Taken from http://conoroneill.net/running-the-latest-chromium-45-on-debian-jessie-on-your-raspberry-pi-2/
wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libg/libgcrypt11/libgcrypt11_1.5.0-5+deb7u3_armhf.deb
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/218525709/chromium-browser_45.0.2454.85-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1097_armhf.deb
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/218525711/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_45.0.2454.85-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1097_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i libgcrypt11_1.5.0-5+deb7u3_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_45.0.2454.85-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1097_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i chromium-browser_45.0.2454.85-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1097_armhf.deb
PepperFlash
PepperFlash has no hardware acceleration so it is slow, but it is good enough for what I needed.
Instructions are adapted from https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=99202:
wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/armv7h/alarm/chromium-pepper-flash-12.0.0.77-1-armv7h.pkg.tar.xz
tar -xf PepperFlash-12.0.0.77-armv7h.tar.gz
sudo cp lib/PepperFlash/lib/* /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins
sudo nano /etc/chromium-browser/default
Edit the chromium config::
vim /etc/chromium/default
CHROMIUM_FLAGS="--ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=12.0.0.77 -password-store=detect -user-data-dir"
It looks like it’s a good thing the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B has a quad-core CPI.
$ top
... snip ...
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
986 pi 20 0 252448 65724 40588 S 141.9 6.9 17:16.15 chromiu+
839 pi 20 0 462472 119356 79216 R 82.8 12.6 10:18.33 chromiu+
955 pi 20 0 284936 70168 58028 R 30.6 7.4 3:42.61 chromiu+
Start Chromium on Start
By default Raspian logs in the user pi and runs startx. ALl that is left
is to open chromium automatically on login:
pi@raspberrypi:~/.config/autostart $ more chromium.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Chromium
Type=Application
Comment=Start up chromium
Exec=/usr/bin/chromium-browser
Load site by default in chromium
We can use the chromium settings to open a page on startup.
We can also use the --kiosk option to start chromium in full-screen mode.
Or use the chromium command line options in the autostart file. Change the
last line to:
Exec=/usr/bin/chromium-browser --kiosk --disable-session-crashed-bubble file:///path/to/file.html
I found the detailed instructions here http://superuser.com/questions/461035/disable-google-chrome-session-restore-functionality
Testing with remote desktop
The autostart folder is repsected on remote desktop sessions. To install RDP
on the pi:
sudo apt-get install xrdp
To kill a remote desktop session so you can test autostart changes use
something like:
pkill Xvnc
The RDP session has a different display than the session started on power-up,
so you may be trying to start two instances of chromium which will not work.
You might need to kill chromium:
pkill chromium-b+
Automatically connect on WiFi
Sometime the pi does not connect to wifi network. I am not sure why because usually it does automatically connect.
You might try this guide http://weworkweplay.com/play/automatically-connect-a-raspberry-pi-to-a-wifi-network/
Power options
Does the pi go into power saving mode.
Shutdown
It’s bad to shutdown the pi by removing power. Eventually the filesystem may get corrupted.
Even if I setup a power switch to run the shutdown command, the end-user in will never bother with shutting it off correctly.