Write up on how one might set up a pi to launch only a browser, putting it in a "kiosk" mode.

pi-web-browser-in-kiosk-mode.md

Set up a pi to launch a web browser in kiosk mode

For this project I simply want to have a raspberry pi start and launch a browser in kiosk mode. This pi would act as a status board letting passersby know the status of whatever is being displayed by the pi.

Set up

1. Download and burn raspian to a micro sd.
2. Log into the Pi with the default pi user and launch sudo rapsi-config.
3. Set localization options if necessary.
4. Change the default password.
5. Configure the boot to Desktop/CLI and choose Console auto login.
6. Enable SSH.
7. Disable "overscan".
8. Reboot the pi
9. Update all pre-installed packages

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

10. Install xserver and a window manager

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg x11-xserver-utils xinit openbox

11. Install a browser.

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends chromium-browser

12. Configure openbox which was installed in step 10. This disables the screensaver and power management.

# 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 --disable-infobars --kiosk 'http://your-url-here'

13. Finally, launch startx with

startx -- -nocursor

Courtesy https://die-antwort.eu/techblog/2017-12-setup-raspberry-pi-for-kiosk-mode/