Monday, 05 May 2014 11:59
Raspberry Pi: Running Midori browser without a Desktop

Midori is a lightweight browser using the WebKit rendering engine and it is a default browser that is found in Raspbian. This is a quick quide to start the Midori browser from the command line without a desktop manager.
To start the Midori in full screen mode, use the following command:
xinit /usr/bin/midori -e Fullscreen -a http://domain/homepage.html
However it is not in full screen mode, it just fill up about quarter size of the screen. To fix this problem, Midori must run on a windows manager. Here is the solution:
Install the matchbox software which is is a free and open source window manager for the X Window System. Matchbox is mainly intended for embedded systems and it is very lightweight.
sudo apt-get install matchbox |
Create a file in your home directory (/home/pi) called startMidori
Now run xinit ./startMidori (with the leading dot) and the Midori window should be fullscreen.
Note: You might need to install x11-xserver-utils in order to make the xset -dpms and xset s off to work correctly.
sudo apt-get install x11-xserver-utils |
Hiding the mouse pointer
Install unclutter. It will hide your mouse pointer if there is no activity.
sudo apt-get install unclutter
Execute unclutter before Matchbox Window Manager, your script should look like this:
Force the Raspberry Pi to use HDMI mode and changing Resolution
Autorunning programs on startup
Edit the /etc/rc.local file. Apeend one line just before exit0 as shown in figure below
- The sudo command stands for "superuser do", it assumes you want your application run with root user privileges.
- The "&" cause the application running in background.
Press CTRL + ALT + F1 exit back to command prompt after the program (Midori) is running.
Press CTRL + ALT + F7 return to Matchbox Window Manager
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