Arch Linux

jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Boot to Browser Only

Hey All,

I've got Arch setup and running great on my home media PC. I'm now working on a project for work where I have a remote computer that is used as a kiosk to display a dynamic webpage. Is there a way to boot directly into Chromium or Firefox without using a display manager or desktop environment? Can I use xstart somehow? My home setup uses KDE, but I don't really want to set all of that up on this barebones system. I just want a web browser and SSH access.

Thanks!

James

RaisedFist

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2007-01-30

Posts: 556

Website

Re: Boot to Browser Only

This is what I did for starting XBMC on my "home media center":

in /etc/inittab I set the default runlevel to 5 and defined it like this:

x:5:once:/bin/su - -- user -l -c '/usr/bin/startx </dev/null >/dev/null 2>&1'

this will start X window using the .xinitrc method.

in .xinitrc i just put a line starting xbmc.

Of course, if you want X to restart in case it breaks, you should replace "once" with "respawn" I guess.

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last.fm

SanskritFritz

Member

From: Budapest, Hungary

Registered: 2009-01-08

Posts: 1,924

Website

Re: Boot to Browser Only

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cr … Kiosk_User
I havent tested it though, just searched the wiki for kiosk.

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zʇıɹɟʇıɹʞsuɐs AUR || Cycling in Budapest with a helmet camera || Revised log levels proposal: "FYI" "WTF" and "OMG" (John Barnette)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Boot to Browser Only

I remember having some issues when trying to forgo a WM, so I stuck with dwm (a very light WM).
The link SanskritFritz provided suggests ratpoison which should be fine too.

jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Re: Boot to Browser Only

I got it loaded up and working, problem is it won't go fullscreen. It's only about 2/3 of the screen right now with the rest black.

I messed with openbox and have it up and going, but would prefer to run it directly without a WM since it is the only thing going.

Any ideas on how to handle the size of it?

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Boot to Browser Only

I got it loaded up and working, problem is it won't go fullscreen. It's only about 2/3 of the screen right now with the rest black.

I recall having the same problems, that's why I decided to keep dwm.