[Buildroot] Raspberry Pi: recommendations for web kiosk

[Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@mind.be>]

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
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