tlwiki-wikijs/dotfiles/greetd.md

title	description	published	date	tags	editor	dateCreated
Greetd		true	2024-03-09T02:47:50.158Z		markdown	2024-03-09T01:26:21.021Z

Kiosk mode

greetd is great for running one full-size app started at boot with the help of cage.

Prerequisites

Package	Description	Required?
cage	Wayland compositor that forces one full-screen window	Yes
polkit	System privilege control	Required if not using seatd service
xorg-server-xwayland	X11 support	No

Running a browser tab/window

Running bpytop (or any other terminal program)

bpytop is a great little resource monitor. I have a server with a small display that doesn't do much but show a login screen all day, and I figured why not just have the display run a resource monitor?

Don't forget to fix the graphs {.is-info}

Method 1: Direct to the VT

You can launch any program directly to the VT and skip the X server or Wayland compositor nonsense. However, keep in mind that the VT can be pretty limited when it comes to the features we expect from a modern terminal program.

Regardless, here's how to configure greetd to do that:

/etc/greetd/config.toml:

[default_session]
command = "bpytop"
user = "thurstylark"

Method 2: Using fbterm

fbterm is a frame buffer terminal emulator which basically boils down to being a better VT.

/etc/greetd/config.toml:

[default_session]
command = "fbterm -- bpytop"
user = "thurstylark"

This should give you more flexibility with font sizing and configuration through fbterm's configuration file.

Method 3: Using cage and a graphical terminal emulator

This will be less performant than the other methods, but will afford you many more features. This is the method I actually use for this use-case.

[default_session]
command = "cage -s -- alacritty -e bpytop"
user = "thurstylark"