Web Application for Interactive Kiosk Devices

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Revision as of 11:57, 11 October 2012 by Emma.ciobanu (talk | contribs)
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Kiosk device that runs Midori browser

An Interactive Kiosk Device is a computer terminal with proper hardware and software support that provides public access to different kinds of information. They're used in a large variety of domains including commerce, education, entertaining, tourist information and many others.

Goal Of The Project

The project focuses on developing a minimal image with an integrated browser aimed to be used in touchscreen kiosk applications/operating systems. It consists of creating a yocto based application that will automatically start a Midori browser immediately after boot. The login is made automatically after boot and before the browser starts.

The image is developed as a new layer that is added to poky, a platform-independent, cross-compiling layer that provides useful features and functionalities for embedded solutions. For further information about the Yocto, please visit the project’s wiki page or the official website.

The application integrates Midori as the main web browser. The browser was used as a fast and lightweight solution that meets up all the expectations of the project. More information on this topic can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(web_browser).

Integration Of meta-web-kiosk into Poky

This tutorial assumes that you already have a poky distribution on the local machine. If this is not the case follow the steps described in the poky manual to download and configure poky. Here are the steps to follow in order to get the new image to work:

  • Download the repository from [TODO – link to repo]. This step will generate a new folder called meta-web-kiosk.
  • Copy the newly cloned folder in the root of poky.
  • Open meta/classes/core-image.classes and add the following line
PACKAGE_GROUP_x11-browser=”packagegroup-core-x11-browser”
  • If you are using proxies in your network settings
    1. uncomment the following lines from meta-web-kiosk/recipes-browser/midori-session/midori-session_0.1.bb
install –d ${D}/home/${USER}/.config/${BROWSER}/
install ${S}/config/ ${D}/home/${USER}/.config/${BROWSER}
    1. open meta-web-kiosk/recipes-browser/midori-session/midori-session/config and add you proxy settings.
  • Source the oe-init-build-env script
. oe-init-build-env
  • Open conf/bblayers.conf to add the newly configured layer
…
${path_to_poky}/meta	\
…
${path_to_poky}/meta-web-kiosk	\
…
  • Now that everything is set you can build the new image with bitbake
bitbake core-image-web-kiosk
  • and run it in qemu or install it on a device with touchscreen support.