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SETUP.md

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Raspberry setup

From scratch

Get Raspbian CLI

  • Download the Raspberry PI Imager
  • Insert your SD card in your computer
  • Launch the Raspberry PI Imager
  • For the OS option, choose Raspberry Pi OS (other), then Raspberry Pi OS Lite (at the moment there is only the 32-bit version available)
  • For the storage option, choose your SD card
  • (suggestion) Press ctrl + shift + x to access the advanced options: you can change default password here, and pre-configure WiFi access
  • Write the OS to the SD card

Packages

Log in to your PI (by ssh, or if you cannot using a keyboard)

Update the packages:

  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt upgrade

Install the required GUI packages (~90MB of archives):

  • sudo apt install xserver-xorg x11-xserver-utils xinit openbox

Install chromium-browser (~80MB of archives):

  • sudo apt install chromium-browser

Raspi-config

Launch the configuration utility: sudo raspi-config:

  • System Options > Boot / Auto Login > Console Autologin
  • System Options > Network at Boot > Yes
  • Display Options > Underscan > No
  • Finish (you can reboot now if you want)

Openbox configuration

Edit the autostart file: sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart: Add the following lines:

# Disable any form of screen saver / screen blanking / power management
xset s off
xset s noblank
xset -dpms

# Allow quitting the X server with CTRL-ATL-Backspace
setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

# Start Chromium in kiosk mode
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/' ~/.config/chromium/'Local State'
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/; s/"exit_type":"[^"]\+"/"exit_type":"Normal"/' ~/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

chromium-browser --kiosk --noerrdialogs --disable-translate --disable-infobars --disable-features=TranslateUI --disk-cache-dir=/dev/null --disable-pinch --overscroll-history-navigation=disabled --disable-features=TouchpadOverscrollHistoryNavigation $JITSI_BOX_URL

ctrl+x to leave the file, then y to save, then enter to keep same filename

Edit the environment file: sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/environment: Add the following line (replace the URL with the one were you deployed the Jitsi Box UI, or if you do not have such website, you can contact people from OpenFUN to use their instance):

export JITSI_BOX_URL=https://your.jitsi-box.url.com

Start on boot

Create or modify the ~/.bash_profile file by addinf the following lines:

[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && startx -- -nocursor

Touchscreen known issue

At the time of the project, Raspbian under Bullseye was recently out, and there was a known problem with the touchscreen: only the first touch was recorded.

To address that, you must modify the /boot/config.txt file to use Fake-KMS instead of KMS:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Search for the line dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d (~ line 62), and replace it with dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

Now reboot and enjoy :)

Notes

  • The first time the device enters a Jitsi Room, you may need to accept camera and mic usage
  • Depending on your webcam, Jitsi may not be able to detect automatically the mic the first time you join a room, and you may have to choose it from the mic list (for instance, using the Sandberg Webcam, there were 5 webcam mic available, 4 of them were marked with a red alert, and only one had a green sound bar, and was working)

Using our Image (WIP)

Downloading and flashing

There is an image which already contains all the above configuration, which you can download here (not available yet), and write on your SD card (on the Raspberry Pi Imager, choose "Custom Image" and choose the image previously downloaded)

Configuration

You will not have ssh access to this image, so when you boot your raspi, if you want to change anything, plug in a keyboard, press ctrl + alt + F2 to open a new terminal, and log in with the default pi credentials.

If you want to change the authorized ssh users:

nano .ssh/authorized_keys

and add your public key.

To change the Jitsi-Box UI website: sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/environment, and change the line

export JITSI_BOX_URL=https://your.jitsi-box.url.com

Reboot once you are done :)

Issues

We faced some issues while setting the raspi:

Using Raspbian Desktop

  • Using Raspbian desktop was easier to configure at first, but we had issues with the sound: it seems that the desktop version has pulsaudio installed, which conflicts with alsa: the result was that the Webcam Mic was detected, but its volume was systematically set to 0 as soon as we tried to raise it. The few seconds we could hear it, there was a lot of noise.

  • Desktop version was much more resource-consuming.

  • Desktop version also had the 3d acceleration driver problem (need to use fkms instead of kms)

Camera

  • The camera sometime freezes or has a degraded quality. It seems to be a network related problem, so we advise to use Ethernet instead of WiFi.

  • All cameras may not be recognized, you can find the list of tested devices here.

Microphone

  • To check if your microphone is detected, you can run the arecord -l command. You can also use alsamixer to check the detected sound cards (press S), and to change the the input volumes. You can also try to change the /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf file, as explained here (a bit outdated, be careful).

  • All microphones may not be recognized, you can find the list of tested devices here.

Screen orientation

Your display may be upside-down, depending of the way it is fixed to a wall, or laying on a desk.
To fix the orientation, we follow the official documentation: Edit the boot command line file:

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

and add at the end of the line

video=DSI-1:800x480@60,rotate=180

⚠️ This will only reverse the display, but not the touch axes ! ⚠️
To revert the touch axis, you must add a line to the boot confix file: Edit the boot command line file:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Under the line dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d (or dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d if you did not change it), add the line:

dtoverlay=rpi-ft5406,touchscreen-inverted-x=1,touchscreen-inverted-y=1