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I have a raspberry pi running Ubuntu Server connected to a large display that needs to display a webpage containing HTML and CSS to show information is the lobby at my workplace. If possible, I would like to have the webpage run in a browser like chromium in a basic x session, no proper desktop environment or anything.

Here’s what I’ve tried: Installing xorg and Openbox, which worked, but I’d prefer to not have to run the browser in a window manager/desktop environment, if possible.

In a nutshell, I need to run a single graphical web browser full screen in a basic x session.

GNULinuxOnboard
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3 Answers3

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You can combine two options to do this.

  1. You can directly launching a program (e.g. Firefox, Chrome) from terminal by passing it as a parameter to startx
  2. You can use the Kiosk mode of a browser that supports it (Chrome?) Or the full screen mode of any browser, where you set the default home page to the URL that you want to show.

See for more help:

  1. How to start firefox in fullscreen mode?
  2. https://superuser.com/questions/219511/browser-instead-of-window-manager
Pablo Bianchi
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xrplorer
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Here suggests it's doable. However, it would also depend on what your web page requires. Is it simple HTML+CSS? Then you don't even need the heavyweight Chromium and can use a lighter browser such as Midori Falkon Min (reviewed) or a few others.

Pablo Bianchi
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K7AAY
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I found the answer to my question: To do this, we will run Chromium in Kiosk mode. First, install chromium and xorg:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install chromium-browser xorg

Now, you can start Chromium in kiosk mode with this command:

startx /usr/bin/chromium-browser —-kiosk <website>

You would replace “website” with the website you would like to visit. To exit kiosk mode, do alt+f4.

GNULinuxOnboard
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