MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 3:22 pm**

First, I hope I'm posting in the correct forum. If not, can someone please move this topic for me (Thank you)

I have decided to use one of my old PC's (an HP w/Intel I-3) for a VERY SIMPLE project but I am such a novice I don't know how to set up what I want.

I want to be able to hit the "ON" switch on this computer and have it boot to MX (or some other - better for a specific use - flavor of Linux). Once booted I want it to automatically launch Firefox to a specific url (my preferred interactive weather-radar map) in full-screen. It will sit all day long, running on my old "theater" monitor across the room so I can glance at it and see if any ugly weather is approaching my area. If the monitor shuts off after x minutes I can wake it up with the mouse, but I'd prefer that the screen not shut off for at least an hour.

This is all I want. I will have no need for a DE, I will have no need for any applications, I will have no need for ANYTHING except a dumbed-down interactive weather-radar display.

AND - most important - I really am a novice so any instructions/suggestions will have to be very specific.

This is how it looks now - but it's a full-blown version of MXL and requires normal hands-on navigation every time I turn it on. I just want this to appear every time I flip the switch (with no hands-on ANYTHING).

THANKS IN ADVANCE !!

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 3:40 pm**

I run a number of kiosk like machines and here is how I set them up.

First, I keep on board almost all MX stuff, as at times I need to modify the system.

Then my setup is as follows:
- Install MX xfce and set it to auto login .
- Setup firefox to start automatically. ( MX Session and Startup )
- set firefox to the page you want and then set to go full screen.
(I use firefox --kiosk when launching it )

- Then, start turning off things you dont want running using MX Service manager and MX Session and Startup.

. As I said I normally dont remove too much, but big things like libreoffice, gimp etc should not be an issue to remove

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 3:54 pm**

What you seek is called Kiosk Mode - so I suggest Google is your new friend for today.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 4:23 pm**

FullScale4Me wrote: Tue Jun 17, 2025 3:54 pm What you seek is called Kiosk Mode - so I suggest Google is your new friend for today.

Some homework is definitely in order here. This sounds like it could be a very rewarding project and it seems eminently doable if you break it down into a list of small tasks. Turn off the screensaver: easy. Change power settings to keep the display on: easy.

The way I see it, this will be a matter of taking a standard MX install, turning on the autologin option in "MX User Manager", and adding a new entry to "Session and Startup" as already suggested. There's no need to remove the other software on the system if you just want to run this one thing all day unless you expect someone might tamper with it, so consider what the worst-possible use case is going to be. If it's just you wanting to look at a weather map, there's not going to be much in terms of locking down of behavior that you might need to do if there are young children around or a nosy housekeeper. Having an office suite installed isn't an issue if you never run it, and if it's going to bug you that it's there and taking up disk space, you might have luck starting with the MX minimal respin, which removes a lot of the complimentary packages that a standard MX install contains.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 6:00 pm**

Great suggestions and I'm already making real progress. I'll report after the current thunderstorm.

THANKS !!

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 6:19 pm**

Tovian wrote: Tue Jun 17, 2025 6:00 pm Great suggestions and I'm already making real progress. I'll report after the current thunderstorm.

Looking forward to it. Two things that I'd recommend considering when building a kiosk machine or a dedicated application server like this: (1) create a second user account and put it in /etc/sudoers to be able to make administrative changes to the machine and (2) make sure you can remote into that account with SSH.

This way you can literally disconnect the mouse and keyboard from the machine and let it run as long as you like and still be able to patch it from, say, a laptop on the same network. More importantly, you can safely issue shutdowns and reboots when you need to, and when you get tired of using the machine as a kiosk or dedicated application server, you can remote into the machine and turn off the autostart stuff and repurpose the box without having to reinstall anything.

Edit: This turns out to be my 1,395th post on the forum and I'm quite pleased about that.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2025 6:39 pm**

@DukeComposed Congrats!

+1 on all that, and I would add one more thing - on my mx machines that are headless, I have found that having xserver-xorg-video-dummy installed keeps them from having keyboard latency issues when I am remoted into them. (And for some reason on a couple of hp boxes this helps when there is no keyboard and mouse either.)

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2025 1:06 am**

all info is good although a few things could be changed. yet play around stuff presented is all correct just a few tweaks and hints. openssh-server needs install client only comes auto with the MX- package so easy to call

Code: Select all

 
1:-  sudo apt install openssh-server -y 
2:-  Firefox trick:  /usr/bin/firefox --new-window https://www.forum.mxlinux.org --new-tab https://radar.weather.gov/ --new-tab https://www.accuweather.com --new-tab https://www.theweathernetwork.com  --new-tab https://www.weather.gov   #here any URL can be added simply follow this syntax for command line launching sep tabs.

see in terminal shell firefox --help reveals this command syntax, can be easily scripted and set as an /etc/init.d start script for weather and choice to start

good idea one can consider is other gov weather and or seismic sites for earth quake activities. how about a Cron script or cron entry to change it up every 3 or 4 hours.
not too hard to accomplish. some cool things with tad little imagination can go long way to make it really cool and truly unique as such that linux can easily provide.
enjoy. cheers.

Posted: **Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:08 pm**

I have had to handle a bunch of client calls and other responsibilities in the last few days. I'll be back on this in just a day or two.

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 11:14 am**

Well, as often happens with a "rookie", I've shot myself in the foot - and whether it's an injury I can recover from (or will have to be "reborn") will lie in whatever answers this post generates...

I set up an autostart for Firefox-in-kiosk-mode. No problem. Now I can't get back to my desktop (GUI) to make other modifications. And, (here's the real DA stuff...) I didn't create a 2nd user to boot into AND I can't remember the password for root.

Any way to kill Firefox running in kiosk-mode and get back to the GUI ?

Nevermind - Alt + F4 did it

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 11:37 am**

Very good. And you should be able to F11 and it will come out of Kiosk mode. (Also Alt-Tab if you have any other app open will bring you to that app)

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:36 pm**

Now there's another "oops" I have discovered. I have ALMOST EVERYTHING working exactly as I want. The one thing I will change if I can is this...

The Cursor

When the boot/login/autostart completes - and the beautiful radar map is displayed - the da__ed cursor is right in the middle of the map !!

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:43 pm**

Install unclutter from MX Package installer | Enabled repos tab.

This hides the mouse when no activity after X seconds.

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:50 pm**

Workin on it................

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:58 pm**

Works beautifully "on-demand". Do I have to do anything to make it run after every boot ?

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2025 4:03 pm**

Seems like I had to set up an auto startup in Sessions and Startup, I set it to "log in" as I recall

Posted: **Sat Jun 21, 2025 8:02 pm**

@CharlesV - Some of the things you refer to I am unable to find. I think that may be because you did not know I am running MX-KDE.

This (unclutter) is kicking me while I'm already down. I cannot get it and Firefox autostarted and running together. I'm probably doing something wrong, but I can't make it work.

I have the PC that's running my "dedicated weather display" outputting its video to a HDMI splitter/duplicator so I can show the output (and use mouse/keyboard) on one port of my "B" group KVM while the other side of the video duplicator hooks directly to the theatre monitor. Therefore, even though it's somewhat of a bother (and doesn't satisfy my original goal for this project), I can still launch unclutter manually or simply move the mouse pointer out of the picture.

Posted: **Sat Jun 21, 2025 8:21 pm**

ko.. so for KDE .. you would create an entry in autostart for unclutter.

I just created in my KDE vm, and also set Firefox to start on login and they both seemed to work just fine. Not sure why a splitter would make any difference, unclutter should still work.

Posted: **Sat Jun 21, 2025 8:44 pm**

No, the splitter has nothing to do with it - I was just saying that I had an alternative to "autostarting". I will try this tomorrow, but I think I was getting hung up somewhere in the correct commands to autostart. The only way I've made unclutter run is to start from a terminal - and that hangs - and I can't start anything else. If there's a way to break a perfectly good process/program I can usually find it.

Posted: **Sat Jun 21, 2025 8:50 pm**

yeah, I saw the same in a terminal, it was just running. But starting it with an autostart entry worked just fine for me. ( both xfce and kde) .

I did notice that there was an unclutter-startup in MXPI, but I have never used it.

Posted: **Sun Jun 22, 2025 3:35 pm**

HOORAY - got it working exactly the way I wanted !!

Many, many THANKS to all who helped me with this project

I hesitate to mark a single post as "the solution" since several folks contributed. But, because the forum leaders request, I will use the supplied tool to mark this "solved"

Posted: **Sun Jun 22, 2025 3:41 pm**

Glad to hear you have it working.

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:21 pm**

I absolutely love this new toy. Every time I walk into my "office" I first look at this big, beautiful weather-radar display and instantly know the short-term likelihood of thunderstorms in my part of the world (They pop up almost every afternoon at this time of year, and can be really severe. When I see 'em coming I power down all my computers).

Also, I found the "remote" for the big monitor so I can now turn it on/off without even getting up. And, I used UBlock-Origin to clean up the (web page) display so it's even better now.

Now that I have this terrific tool it will probably never rain another drop in the southeastern United States (??)
But, regardless, thanks again - I'm very pleased !!!

* The only downside is it may motivate me to spend more money on a newer and significantly larger TV/Monitor.

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:55 pm**

Tovian wrote: Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:21 pm I absolutely love this new toy. Every time I walk into my "office" I first look at this big, beautiful weather-radar display and instantly know the short-term likelihood of thunderstorms in my part of the world (They pop up almost every afternoon at this time of year, and can be really severe. When I see 'em coming I power down all my computers).

This sounds like a really cool toy, with a good deal of utility behind it, too.

For those curious to know how to set up something similar in a terminal window:

Code: Select all

watch -n 3600 --color "curl https://wttr.in"

should be enough get you a working prototype. Adjust the size of the window and typeface as desired and maybe even put this in a ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile or tmux config to start it automatically if you want a dedicated weather report station like OP.

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2025 9:12 pm**

Tovian wrote: Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:21 pm I absolutely love this new toy. Every time I walk into my "office" I first look at this big, beautiful weather-radar display and instantly know the short-term likelihood of thunderstorms in my part of the world (They pop up almost every afternoon at this time of year, and can be really severe. When I see 'em coming I power down all my computers).

Also, I found the "remote" for the big monitor so I can now turn it on/off without even getting up. And, I used UBlock-Origin to clean up the (web page) display so it's even better now.

Now that I have this terrific tool it will probably never rain another drop in the southeastern United States (??)
But, regardless, thanks again - I'm very pleased !!!

* The only downside is it may motivate me to spend more money on a newer and significantly larger TV/Monitor.

Excellent! glad to hear this. And yes, I might just do that with one of my old computers too. (or my camera server .)

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2025 9:15 pm**

@Tovian If I might ask, what weather map are you using?

Posted: **Tue Jun 24, 2025 6:31 am**

DukeComposed wrote: Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:55 pm
Tovian wrote: Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:21 pm I absolutely love this new toy. Every time I walk into my "office" I first look at this big, beautiful weather-radar display and instantly know the short-term likelihood of thunderstorms in my part of the world (They pop up almost every afternoon at this time of year, and can be really severe. When I see 'em coming I power down all my computers).
This sounds like a really cool toy, with a good deal of utility behind it, too.

For those curious to know how to set up something similar in a terminal window:
Code: Select all
watch -n 3600 --color "curl https://wttr.in"
should be enough get you a working prototype. Adjust the size of the window and typeface as desired and maybe even put this in a ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile or tmux config to start it automatically if you want a dedicated weather report station like OP.

AMAZING

Just tried it, and put my specific location, like this:

Code: Select all

watch -n 3600 --color "curl https://wttr.in/NameOfState"

Note: Enter your actual State for "NameOfState" above...

Not sure if it can do City-specific or GPS coordinates, but WOW

Thanks @DukeComposed

EDIT/ADDENDUM:

Just checked the Developer's contact info/site (X), and he has examples of specific cities, and more, e.g. comparing the weather in 2 cities. When you run the code to get the weather, there's a link to his X page, where you can see examples of this cool stuff:

https://x.com/igor_chubin

From there, there is a link to his github repo:

https://github.com/chubin

Posted: **Tue Jun 24, 2025 6:43 am**

operadude wrote: Tue Jun 24, 2025 6:31 am Not sure if it can do City-specific or GPS coordinates, but WOW :exclamation:

It can:

Supported location types:

Code: Select all

    /paris                  # city name
    /~Eiffel+tower          # any location (+ for spaces)
    /Москва                 # Unicode name of any location in any language
    /muc                    # airport code (3 letters)
    /@stackoverflow.com     # domain name
    /94107                  # area codes
    /-78.46,106.79          # GPS coordinates

I'm pretty sure "area codes" here is supposed to be ZIP codes, but the idea still stands.

Posted: **Tue Jun 24, 2025 7:03 am**

DukeComposed wrote: Tue Jun 24, 2025 6:43 am
operadude wrote: Tue Jun 24, 2025 6:31 am Not sure if it can do City-specific or GPS coordinates, but WOW
It can:
Supported location types:
Code: Select all
    /paris                  # city name
    /~Eiffel+tower          # any location (+ for spaces)
    /Москва                 # Unicode name of any location in any language
    /muc                    # airport code (3 letters)
    /@stackoverflow.com     # domain name
    /94107                  # area codes
    /-78.46,106.79          # GPS coordinates
I'm pretty sure "area codes" here is supposed to be ZIP codes, but the idea still stands.

WOW

It just keeps getting better

And...

'Loves me my CLIs'

Posted: **Tue Jun 24, 2025 11:04 am**

@CharlesV - Oops, sorry, I probably should have posted that at the beginning. But, here 'tis:

Code: Select all

https://radar.weather.gov/?settings=v1_eyJhZ2VuZGEiOnsiaWQiOiJ3ZWF0aGVyIiwiY2VudGVyIjpbLTg2LjYzNCwzNC4wNjJdLCJsb2NhdGlvbiI6Wy04NC40NTksMzQuMDYyXSwiem9vbSI6NiwibGF5ZXIiOiJicmVmX3FjZCJ9LCJhbmltYXRpbmciOmZhbHNlLCJiYXNlIjoic3RhbmRhcmQiLCJhcnRjYyI6ZmFsc2UsImNvdW50eSI6ZmFsc2UsImN3YSI6ZmFsc2UsInJmYyI6ZmFsc2UsInN0YXRlIjpmYWxzZSwibWVudSI6ZmFsc2UsInNob3J0RnVzZWRPbmx5IjpmYWxzZSwib3BhY2l0eSI6eyJhbGVydHMiOjAsImxvY2FsIjowLjYsImxvY2FsU3RhdGlvbnMiOjAuOCwibmF0aW9uYWwiOjAuNzl9fQ%3D%3D

That url gets to my general area, but you can mouse-move the map and zoom in/out to get whatever display suits you. And there's a few thousand other weather-data pages on this site as well. This is US Government (NOAA) data - but, as we all know, www.guesswhatscomingnextintheatmosphere.con is probably just as reliable (I always think of the "Wizard of ID" when I think of weather forecasters

).

Posted: **Tue Jun 24, 2025 12:35 pm**

@Tovian excellent thank you!

And yes, some excellent weather links in this post too !!

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