Steps taken with a basic Raspbian install.
Default username/password is pi
/raspberry
.
SSH access is enabled by default; run ifconfig
on the Pi to find the IP address to connect to.
Bring everything up-to-date:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Install the following packages:
sudo apt-get install matchbox chromium x11-xserver-utils unclutter
Rationale:
- chromium – a browser, that will be run in a full-screen “kiosk” mode
- matchbox – a lightweight, single-window X environment for the browser to run in (starting a full desktop environment would be wasteful)
- x11-xserver-utils – tools to allow configuring the X environment to, for instance, prevent the screen from blanking after several minutes
- unclutter – hide the mouse
Inside /home/pi/.kiosk-url
:
http://path/to/your/page
Inside /home/pi/.xinitrc
:
#!/bin/sh
# Disable power dimming and screensaver
xset -dpms
xset s off
while true; do
# Clean up previously running apps, gracefully at first then harshly
killall -TERM chromium 2>/dev/null;
killall -TERM matchbox-window-manager 2>/dev/null;
sleep 2;
killall -9 chromium 2>/dev/null;
killall -9 matchbox-window-manager 2>/dev/null;
# Hide cursor
unclutter &
# Launch window manager without title bar
exec matchbox-window-manager -use_titlebar no &
# Launch browser
chromium --incognito --kiosk `cat /home/pi/.kiosk-url`
done;
You can test this by running startx
on the Pi (not over SSH).
To boot into this mode, add the following to /etc/rc.local
(before exit 0
):
su - pi -c 'startx' &