Multi Chromium Instance on Balena OS

[tishihara]

Hi I’m Taro.
I’m trying to make Digital Signage System.
This is for Japanese Railway Stations, I’ve already made this with another platform and now on production.

Basically, I did like this.

chromium-browser --app=http://your-domain/?display=1 --window-position=0,0 --kiosk --user-data-dir=/var/tmp/display1 &
chromium-browser --app=http://your-domain/?display=2 --window-position=1920,0 --kiosk --user-data-dir=/var/tmp/display2 &

Do you think is it possible to make it with Balena OS?
If you think so, I will try to implement it by cloneing existing project, do you have recommendation that I should clone?

• GitHub - balena-labs-projects/balena-dash: Build a Raspberry Pi based desktop dashboard for stats, photos, videos and more!
• GitHub - balena-labs-projects/browser: A drop-in web browser block

These two seems useful. But second one has a issue about multiple browser, I’m a little bit worried about that

[alanb128]

Hello Taro,

It does seem possible to build what you described using balena. Almost anything that can run in a container can be utilized, so there are a lot of options. Indeed, we have a few examples of such a project:

• This ferry schedule display (GitHub - nucleardreamer/wsf-ferry-schedule) uses Electron and an xserver.
• This train sign project uses a matrix oled display but could be adapted to a flat screen: Build a Raspberry Pi powered live train station sign for your desk
  You may even be able to implement your project with the browser block alone if the web-based scheduling screens are hosted elsewhere. What is the specific “multiple browser” issue you are referring to?

[tishihara]

Thank you alanb128,
I love this community, there are so many projects I can see!
I think now I have all the cards, I will try to make this and I will share the configuration when it’s done.

And I’m sorry that I didn’t specify the issue, this is I mentioned about.

Multiscreen Browser

This is not a multiple chromium, just a single browser instance with two iframes.

[tishihara]

I almost finished dual display version of Balena Browser.

GitHub - taro-ishihara/balena-display

This is forked from Balena Browser but I rewrite API with typescript and updated Base Image.
I will add README.md more especially about original repository link etc…

What I did was was just made 2 User Directory Area for each instances.

## Setup User Data
RUN mkdir -p /chromium/display1
RUN mkdir -p /chromium/display2
RUN chown -R chromium:chromium /chromium/display1
RUN chown -R chromium:chromium /chromium/display2

And launch chromium twice by using ‘chrome-launcher’.

Thank you!

[locustcox]

Thanks, man! Great find. Worked great.

[valerian]

I am trying to run this project on my Raspberry Pi 4, however the screens are black.
Is there any configuration I need to do beside changing the GPU Memory to 256?