[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Thomas De Schampheleire]

Hi,

We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
few iframes.

While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
hickups.

The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
:-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.

My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
even for this mundane task?
Which packages should I select to achieve this?

Do I need an X.org or not really?
If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
(as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).

Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.

Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?

Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.

Thanks,
Thomas

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Eric Le Bihan]

Hi!
On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
> few iframes.
>
> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
> hickups.
>
> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
>
> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
> even for this mundane task?
> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
>
> Do I need an X.org or not really?
> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
>
> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
>
> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
>
> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
EGLFS [1]?

Best regards,
ELB

[1] http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/embedded-linux.html

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Thomas De Schampheleire]

Hi Eric,

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Eric Le Bihan
<eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
> Hi!
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
>> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
>> few iframes.
>>
>> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
>> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
>> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
>> hickups.
>>
>> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
>> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
>>
>> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
>> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
>> even for this mundane task?
>> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
>>
>> Do I need an X.org or not really?
>> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
>> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
>> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
>>
>> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
>> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
>>
>> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
>>
>> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
> Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
> EGLFS [1]?
>

This is not a commercial product, but rather an internal information
screen used on the workfloor. So writing custom applications, which I
assume is quite some work, is not acceptable. I am hoping for a more
or less out-of-the-box solution...

Thanks for the feedback!
Thomas

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Maxime Hadjinlian]

Hi Thomas,

Like Eric, my two cents since I never started anything graphical but
XBMC on a Raspberry :).

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 3:15 PM, Thomas De Schampheleire
<patrickdepinguin@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Eric Le Bihan
> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
>> Hi!
>> On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
>>> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
>>> few iframes.
>>>
>>> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
>>> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
>>> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
>>> hickups.
>>>
>>> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
>>> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
>>>
>>> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
>>> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
>>> even for this mundane task?
I don't know Raspbian so I don't know if you would gain by building a
small image with Buildroot, maybe you got a bunch of software launched
at startup that you don't really need, that sort of stuff.
I think the RPi is plenty powerfull for this.
>>> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
Well, rpi-userland and your browser (and obviously busybox, etc)
should be enough. A custom /etc/network/interfaces in a post-build
script and you should be set.
>>>
>>> Do I need an X.org or not really?
>>> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
>>> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
>>> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
>>>
>>> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
>>> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
There's some browser that claim to be lightweight, like Midori (which
seems to support kiosk mode:
http://wiki.xfce.org/midori/faq#kiosk_mode) and is included in
Raspbian and more importantly, Buildroot :).
Since I have never used any, I don't know what its really worth.
You maybe also have the option to use firefox (or maybe other browser)
on the framebuffer, so you would avoir X.org altogether.
>>>
>>> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
If your browser is built for the raspberry, maybe it coud uses it
could uses the GPU to do some rendering ? (wild guess, I don't know if
this is supported/possible)
>>>
>>> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
>> Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
>> EGLFS [1]?
>>
>
> This is not a commercial product, but rather an internal information
> screen used on the workfloor. So writing custom applications, which I
> assume is quite some work, is not acceptable. I am hoping for a more
> or less out-of-the-box solution...
>
> Thanks for the feedback!
> Thomas
> _______________________________________________
> buildroot mailing list
> buildroot at busybox.net
> http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/buildroot

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Eric Le Bihan]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 03:15:25PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Eric Le Bihan
> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
> > Hi!
> > On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
> >> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
> >> few iframes.
> >>
> >> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
> >> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
> >> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
> >> hickups.
> >>
> >> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
> >> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
> >>
> >> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
> >> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
> >> even for this mundane task?
> >> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
> >>
> >> Do I need an X.org or not really?
> >> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
> >> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
> >> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
> >>
> >> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
> >> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
> >>
> >> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
> >>
> >> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
> > Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
> > EGLFS [1]?
> >
>
> This is not a commercial product, but rather an internal information
> screen used on the workfloor. So writing custom applications, which I
> assume is quite some work, is not acceptable. I am hoping for a more
> or less out-of-the-box solution...
Well, thanks to QML and QtWebkit, that is pretty doable. I hacked a quick
example at https://github.com/elebihan/webkiosk, inspired by the Qt examples.

AFAIK, running it with the '-platform eglfs' option should do the trick (not
tested, my RPi is out of order :-( )

Best regards,
ELB

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Thomas De Schampheleire]

Hi Eric,

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Eric Le Bihan
<eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 03:15:25PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Eric Le Bihan
>> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
>> > Hi!
>> > On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
>> >> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
>> >> few iframes.
>> >>
>> >> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
>> >> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
>> >> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
>> >> hickups.
>> >>
>> >> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
>> >> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
>> >>
>> >> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
>> >> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
>> >> even for this mundane task?
>> >> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
>> >>
>> >> Do I need an X.org or not really?
>> >> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
>> >> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
>> >> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
>> >>
>> >> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
>> >> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
>> >>
>> >> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
>> >>
>> >> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
>> > Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
>> > EGLFS [1]?
>> >
>>
>> This is not a commercial product, but rather an internal information
>> screen used on the workfloor. So writing custom applications, which I
>> assume is quite some work, is not acceptable. I am hoping for a more
>> or less out-of-the-box solution...
> Well, thanks to QML and QtWebkit, that is pretty doable. I hacked a quick
> example at https://github.com/elebihan/webkiosk, inspired by the Qt examples.
>
> AFAIK, running it with the '-platform eglfs' option should do the trick (not
> tested, my RPi is out of order :-( )
>

Is this a QT4 or QT5 project?
I enabled qt5 in buildroot, together with the qt5webkit and qt5quick1
packages, and then ran qmake in your webkiosk project. However, 'qml'
and 'quick' modules are not found.
How is this supposed to work?

Looking at the sources in qt5quick1, I don't see any reference to the
installation of a 'quick' module, only of 'declarative'.

Thanks,
Thomas

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 02/07/14 11:04, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Eric Le Bihan
> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 03:15:25PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
>>> Hi Eric,
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Eric Le Bihan
>>> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
>>>> Hi!
>>>> On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
>>>>> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
>>>>> few iframes.
>>>>>
>>>>> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
>>>>> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
>>>>> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
>>>>> hickups.
>>>>>
>>>>> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
>>>>> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
>>>>>
>>>>> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
>>>>> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
>>>>> even for this mundane task?
>>>>> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
>>>>>
>>>>> Do I need an X.org or not really?
>>>>> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
>>>>> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
>>>>> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
>>>>>
>>>>> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
>>>>> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
>>>> Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
>>>> EGLFS [1]?
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is not a commercial product, but rather an internal information
>>> screen used on the workfloor. So writing custom applications, which I
>>> assume is quite some work, is not acceptable. I am hoping for a more
>>> or less out-of-the-box solution...
>> Well, thanks to QML and QtWebkit, that is pretty doable. I hacked a quick
>> example at https://github.com/elebihan/webkiosk, inspired by the Qt examples.
>>
>> AFAIK, running it with the '-platform eglfs' option should do the trick (not
>> tested, my RPi is out of order :-( )
>>
> 
> Is this a QT4 or QT5 project?
> I enabled qt5 in buildroot, together with the qt5webkit and qt5quick1
> packages, and then ran qmake in your webkiosk project. However, 'qml'
> and 'quick' modules are not found.
> How is this supposed to work?
> 
> Looking at the sources in qt5quick1, I don't see any reference to the
> installation of a 'quick' module, only of 'declarative'.

 It's qt5declarative that you want. qt5quick1 is a compatibility library for the
"old" QtQuick from Qt4.

 You can know which one you need by looking at the import:

import QtQuick 2.0 => qt5declarative

import QtQuick 1.0 => qt5quick1

 The names of the libraries is unfortunately the reverse of the names of the
packages.


 Regards,
 Arnout


-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7CB5 E4CC 6C2E EFD4 6E3D A754 F963 ECAB 2450 2F1F

[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Eric Le Bihan]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2014 at 11:04:05AM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Eric Le Bihan
> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 03:15:25PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> >> Hi Eric,
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Eric Le Bihan
> >> <eric.le.bihan.dev@free.fr> wrote:
> >> > Hi!
> >> > On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:02:29PM +0200, Thomas De Schampheleire wrote:
> >> >> Hi,
> >> >>
> >> >> We currently use a Raspberry Pi as a simple web-wall. It cycles every
> >> >> two minutes between two (non-local) web pages, one of which contains a
> >> >> few iframes.
> >> >>
> >> >> While this can hardly be called a resource-intensive task, the
> >> >> Raspberry Pi by no means performs this fluently. The pages load
> >> >> relatively slow, and administration tasks on this pi also suffer from
> >> >> hickups.
> >> >>
> >> >> The pi currently contains a raspbian image (not done by me, I swear!
> >> >> :-) ) and uses chromium in kiosk mode to display the web pages.
> >> >>
> >> >> My basic question is: can I expect to get better performance by
> >> >> setting up a custom buildroot image, or is rpi so poor in performance,
> >> >> even for this mundane task?
> >> >> Which packages should I select to achieve this?
> >> >>
> >> >> Do I need an X.org or not really?
> >> >> If X.org is needed, does 'Kdrive / tinyX' work on rpi, or should I
> >> >> select modular x.org, and how do these compare.
> >> >> (as you notice, I have never set up embedded boards with graphical stuff).
> >> >>
> >> >> Which browser should/could I use? Preferably something that can run in
> >> >> fullscreen mode as this is a kiosk-like board.
> >> >>
> >> >> Is rpi-userland needed / recommended? How would I benefit from it?
> >> >>
> >> >> Any other recommendations/tips are welcome too, of course.
> >> > Just my two cents: how about using a custom application based on QtWebkit with
> >> > EGLFS [1]?
> >> >
> >>
> >> This is not a commercial product, but rather an internal information
> >> screen used on the workfloor. So writing custom applications, which I
> >> assume is quite some work, is not acceptable. I am hoping for a more
> >> or less out-of-the-box solution...
> > Well, thanks to QML and QtWebkit, that is pretty doable. I hacked a quick
> > example at https://github.com/elebihan/webkiosk, inspired by the Qt examples.
> >
> > AFAIK, running it with the '-platform eglfs' option should do the trick (not
> > tested, my RPi is out of order :-( )
> >
>
> Is this a QT4 or QT5 project?
> I enabled qt5 in buildroot, together with the qt5webkit and qt5quick1
> packages, and then ran qmake in your webkiosk project. However, 'qml'
> and 'quick' modules are not found.
> How is this supposed to work?

It's a Qt5 project. I added a package for webkiosk in my external
customization for Buildroot [1], as well as a configuration for building an
image for RPi (demo_webkiosk_rpi_defconfig). The "elebihan/qt5wayland" branch
of my Buildroot repo [2] should be used, because a patch is needed to build
qt5base with EGLFS support [3].

Though the program runs smoothly on x86 and the build is successful, executing
the program on the target ends up with a black screen... The command used is:

  $ webkiosk -platform eglfs

I'll investigate as soon as I'll understand why I can not use my USB keyboard
and the Ethernet connection as the same time (D'Oh! Not convenient for
debugging)...

>
> Looking at the sources in qt5quick1, I don't see any reference to the
> installation of a 'quick' module, only of 'declarative'.
>
> Thanks,
> Thomas

Best regards,
ELB

[1] https://github.com/elebihan/buildroot-ext-elb
[2] https://github.com/elebihan/buildroot/tree/elebihan/qt5wayland
[3] https://github.com/elebihan/buildroot/commit/9593273c4341ccfce5b0d8667e00c06db0b00fc4