WIP ONHOLD: Manually setup MediacenterJS on RaspberryPi with clean raspbian distro

Setup Raspberry Pi

Status: need to find a good browser running on FB!

These are the commands you need to use to build nodejs and all other dependencies on a clean Raspbian distro (http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads) and set it up to boot in kiosk mode.

This is a fairly time consuming task as compiling takes a while on the Raspberry Pi.

This manual is based on the following sources:

http://blogs.wcode.org/2013/09/howto-boot-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-fullscreen-browser-kiosk/ and https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Installing-Node.js-via-package-manager and https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/How%20to%20compile%20FFmpeg%20for%20Raspberry%20Pi%20(Raspbian) and http://kvz.io/blog/2009/12/15/run-nodejs-as-a-service-on-ubuntu-karmic/

Step1: Install dependencies

 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
 sudo apt-get install matchbox luakit x11-xserver-utils ttf-mscorefonts-installer xwit sqlite3 libnss3   git subversion texinfo python g++ make checkinstall upstart

Step2: Install NodeJS

 mkdir ~/src && cd $_
 wget -N http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
 tar xzvf node-latest.tar.gz && cd node-v* #(remove the "v" in front of the version number in the dialog)
 ./configure
 sudo checkinstall 

 Choose option: 3 (version)

 Change the version to the version without the 'v'. Eg: 0.10.24 NOT v0.10.24

Step3: Download/install MediacenterJS

 cd /home/pi/
 git clone https://github.com/jansmolders86/mediacenterjs
 cd mediacenterjs
 npm install

Step4: Autostart node application on startup

add the following file /etc/init/mediacenterjs.conf an copy the following script:

 start on started mountall
 stop on shutdown
 respawn
 respawn limit 99 5

 script
     export HOME="/root"
     exec node /home/pi/mediacenterjs/server.js >> /var/log/node.log 2>&1
 end script

 post-start script
    # Optionally put a script here that will notifiy you node has (re)started
    # /root/bin/hoptoad.sh "node.js has started!"
 end script

Step5: Set resolution

First we need to get the list of what’s supported by your monitor:

 tvservice -d edid
 edidparser edid

Find the mode that you want in the resulting list (for me it was “HDMI:EDID DMT mode 34) 1920x1080p @ 60 Hz

Then edit the config file:

 nano /boot/config.txt

Find the section about HDMI, uncomment it and set the right group and mode from step 2. If your mode description contains “DMT”, the group should be 2, and if it contains “CEA”, it should be 1, so for me that was: First set the framebuffer up by adding this to /boot/config.txt:

# 1900x1080 at 32bit depth, DMT mode
disable_overscan=1
framebuffer_width=1900
framebuffer_height=1200
framebuffer_depth=32
framebuffer_ignore_alpha=1
hdmi_pixel_encoding=1
hdmi_group=2
    hdmi_mode=34

Step6: Autostart kiosk luakit

Go to:

 /etc/xdg/luakit

edit:

 sudo nano window.lua

go to the function window.new and scroll down to you get to 'return w'. just above the return, type:

  w.win.fullscreen = true

Then edit:

 sudo nano globals.lua
 Set the homepage to 'http://localhost:3000' 
 adjust the resolution if you want as well

Then edit /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart and comment # evything in the file and add these lines:

 @xset s off
 @xset -dpms
 @xset s noblank
 @luakit`

Step7: Install FFMpeg

Building the crosstool-ng

 wget http://crosstool-ng.org/download/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng-1.19.0.tar.bz2
 tar xjf crosstool-ng-1.19.0.tar.bz2
 cd crosstool-ng-1.19.0

 ./configure --prefix=/opt/cross
 make
 sudo make install
 export PATH=$PATH:/opt/cross/bin

 mkdir /home/pi/ctng
 cd /home/pi/ctng
 ct-ng menuconfig`

The menu should show up and you should set up things as instructed by the following walkthrough (checkboxes are selected using the SPACEBAR key and text fields can be edited pressing the ENTER/RETURN key on your keyboard, once you select it with your cursor keys):

 * Paths and misc options
 (Important) Enable "Try features marked as EXPERIMENTAL"
 (Optional) Change "Prefix directory" (for example, you can put "/opt/cross/x-tools/${CT_TARGET}" there)
 * Target options
 (Important) Change "Target architecture" to "arm"
 (Important) Leave "Endianness" set to "Little endian"
 (Important) Leave "Bitness" set to "32-bit"
 * Toolchain options
 (Nothing to do here, the defaults are fine)
 * Operating system
 (Important) Change "Target OS" to "linux"
 * Binary utilities
 (Optional) Change "binutils version" to "2.21.1a" or whichever is the latest that isn't marked      asexperimental
 * C compiler
 (Optional) Enable "Show Linaro versions (EXPERIMENTAL)". In the "gcc version" field, choose the "linaro-4.6-2012.04 (EXPERIMENTAL) compiler". You're free to choose a different one but this one works well. We do recommend the Linaro versions over the vanilla ones for the RPi

(Optional) Enable "C++" under the group "*** Additional supported languages: ***" if you need g++ tool also built for your RPi toolchain`

Now, exit the configuration tool, save your changes and run:

 ct-ng build

This will take some time and when it finishes, you should have an ARM compiler, in the "Prefix directory" that you chose above - "/opt/cross/x-tools/${CT_TARGET}", ready to build anything for your RPi. One final step is to add that directory to your PATH:

 export PATH=$PATH:/opt/cross/x-tools/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/bin

It also might help to export one more important environment variable CCPREFIX: export CCPREFIX="/opt/cross/x-tools/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi-"

Compiling libx264

 cd /my/path/where/i/keep/my/source/code
 git clone git://git.videolan.org/x264
 cd x264
 ./configure --host=arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi --enable-static --cross-prefix=${CCPREFIX} --                prefix=/my/path/were/i/keep/built/arm/stuff --extra-cflags='-march=armv6' --extra-ldflags='-march=armv6'
 make
 make install

Install FFMPEG

 cd /my/path/where/i/keep/my/source/code
 git clone git://source.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
 cd ffmpeg
 ./configure --enable-cross-compile --cross-prefix=${CCPREFIX} --arch=armel --target-os=linux --      prefix=/my/path/were/i/keep/built/arm/stuff --enable-gpl --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --extra-cflags="-          I/my/path/were/i/keep/built/arm/stuff/include" --extra-ldflags="-L/my/path/were/i/keep/built/arm/stuff/lib"      --extra-libs=-ldl
 make
 make install