Raspbian Bookworm - Ultra Minimal Kiosk Setup

raspbian-bookworm-minimal-kiosk.md

This was tested on a fresh Raspbian Bookworm Lite installation. Proceed with caution.

EDIT 23/12/2023: Removed dead download link and added own release

EDIT 09/06/2024: Force wayland after install

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First Steps

Update your system

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade

Install core packages

sudo apt install wayfire seatd xdg-user-dirs

Create ~/.config/wayfire.init

touch ~/.config/wayfire.init

Force Wayland through raspi-config

See https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/144867 ---> REBOOT

On systems older than Pi4: you need wayland=enabled
See https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#wayland ---> REBOOT

Test wayfire

wayfire ---> A black screen will appear with the mouse pointer at the center.

Note: if you are controlling your Pi with a physical keyboard, you might not be able to terminate the process from the same session. This is because no keybindings exist in the config file yet. You can spawn a second tty with ctrl+alt+f2 and kill it from there.

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Change display orientation

sudo apt install wlr-randr

Rotate display: WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1 wlr-randr --output HDMI-A-1 --transform 180
(------------------------has to be launched from within the session. Keep reading---------------------------)

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Hide mouse pointer

You'll need the wayfire-plugins-extra package. Unfortunately it is not available in the Bookworm repos. You have two ways to install it [1]

1.1) Download compiled library

1. Choose your arch

• Raspbian 64-bit
• Raspbian 32-bit
• Raspbian 32-bit (ARMv6)

2. Decompress with tar xf /path/to/wayfire-plugins-extra.tar.xz
3. Each plugin comes with a .so and a an .xml file. You will need to copy those files to their correct paths:
   /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/wayfire/<desired-plugin>.so
/usr/share/wayfire/metadata/<desired-plugin>.xml

1.2) Build from source

1. Follow the instructions in https://github.com/seffs/wayfire-plugins-extra-raspbian/. Install source packages with
   sudo apt install libglibmm-2.4-dev libglm-dev libxml2-dev libpango1.0-dev libcairo2-dev wayfire-dev libwlroots-dev libwf-config-dev
2. Each plugin comes with a .so and .xml file. meson should take care of the installation. Otherwise check if the following path exists for any new extra plugin:
   ls /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/wayfire/<new-extra-plugin>.so
ls /usr/share/wayfire/metadata/<new-extra-plugin>.xml

2) Activate your plugin(s)

I was only interested in hiding the mouse pointer. This can be accomplished with the hide_cursor plugin. The same concept applies to the rest of plugins.

Open your ~/.config/wayfire.init file and paste the following:

[core]
plugins = \
        autostart \
        ### We need to add the extra plugin to the list ###
        hide-cursor

### Execute commands on compositor startup ###
[autostart]
rotate_display = WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1 wlr-randr --output HDMI-A-1 --transform 360
# my_script = /path/to/script

### We can tweak it to our liking. You will find the documentation inside of each plugin's XML file. ###
[hide-cursor]
#toggle = <alt> KEY_Z
#hide_delay = 3

Execute your script on startup

Adjust my_script = /path/to/script to your needs. Don't forget to uncomment it.

Start wayfire

wayfire -c ~/.config/wayfire.ini ---> See? No pointer!

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[1] Based on bjtheone's instructions

@I7T5 Did you install the plug-ins already?

If so, have you tried deleting them first and then starting wayfire that way?

I did not install the plug-ins. Ended up using DietPi with Chromium which (finally!) worked but the display's not optimal. Guess the Pi Zero's not fit for kiosk mode, at least not with a high refresh rate? Thanks for the gist and the reply though!

I've been using the kiosk mode on a Pi Zero W, which has the same board as of the Pi 1. No flaws so far.

I think I've found the culprit. I will update the gist accordingly. Thx for the feedback.