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vinceskahan / pi-chrome-kiosk

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setup for a pi-based browser kiosk

This is how I set up my pi with a 10" screen to display my Home Assistant dashboard. On a pi3 the system boots and runs chrome rather quickly. On an original zero with a usb wifi dongle it takes a minute or two to get to the dashboard finally, but it is quite stable and low power using a zero for a web kiosk.

Prerequisites

These instructions assume that:

  • you are familiar with installing a pi
  • you know how to get it onto your wired or wifi network
  • you can edit a simple text file with any editor of your choosing
  • you remember to preface commands with sudo as needed

Installation

Image the SD card:

  • install Raspbian 'full' version to get the desktop with gui. I use Balena Etcher on a Mac to image the SD card.
  • enable remote ssh access to your pi
    • eject the SD card and put it back into your host that you imaged it on
    • simply 'touch' a file named 'ssh' in the /boot directory of the SD card you imaged
    • eject the SD card

At this point you can boot the pi:

  • put the SD card into the pi and power it on
  • log in as the default user 'pi' with the default os password of 'raspberry'
  • when prompted, change your default password to something non-trivial that you can remember
  • turn off run sudo raspi-config and turn screen blanking off in 'display'
  • remove the firstboot wizard by running sudo apt purge piwiz -y
    • if you used a monitor/keyboard/mouse rather than ssh to log in, you'll have to go through the wizard
  • edit /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart with your editor of choice. Use sudo.
@lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
@xscreensaver -no-splash

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#  Add the following line to run a browser at boot
#
# this example brings up my home assistant dashboard, edit the url to taste
# you might want to try --kiosk mode as well to see if you like that look'n'feel
#

/usr/bin/chromium-browser --start-fullscreen http://192.168.1.171:8123/local/tileboard/index.html

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take the final reboot and test your installation

  • sudo reboot

At this point the pi should reboot and run the Chromium browser automatically.

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