Installing MPF on Raspberry Pi

[Jason]

Hi All, Have tried a couple of times now to install MPF on my raspberry Pi 4.

I have been following these instructions :

https://docs.missionpinball.org/en/latest/install/linux/raspberry.html

Up to and including adding :

kivy_config: graphics: fbo: force-hardware

Once everything is installed, (Debian lite 32 bit), I copy over my config files and run MPF in Terminal Window 1, It opens fine and shows me the  Mission PInball framwork page with my switches listed etc. Next I login to terminal window 2 and run mpf mc, but get the following error :

I am only going to use the media controller to play the sound, otherwise I would not need the mc. Has anyone else seen this or know what can cause it?

Thank you!

[jabdoa]

How do you start mc on the second run? Via local console? Ssh? Init script?

Theoretically, we could create a sound only mc but currently we do not have that.

Jan

[Anthony van Winkle]

Hey Jason-

Kivy requires an X11 window provider, which is typically the desktop GUI interface (gnome, KDE, etc). To run MC directly from the terminal, you have to create an X11 window manager and mount the Kivy application inside of it.

For my in-machine computers I use fluxbox as my window manager, it's extremely lightweight and easy to setup. I think it's theoretically possible to instantiate an X11 window with Kivy directly in it, but that's outside my knowledge and I've never successfully tinkered my way there.

Since you're only using MC for sound.... there may be a way to open the Kivy instance without a window? I'm not sure if Kivy supports that at all.

If you're still in the development phase of your game, I'd suggest installing a desktop GUI on your Pi and using that as long as you can. When you're finished with the game and ready to start optimizing your boot up, I can try and document what I've done for the flux box autoboot.

[cobra18t]

A sound-only MC would be great for anyone running with segment displays or similar. Jan, would that still be through Kivy without a window as Anthony suggests?

Anthony, I would be interested in your boot optimization documentation as well.

[jabdoa]

Sound is independent from Kivy (except videos). The sound part is also quite separate. It mostly about creating a separate launcher which only starts the sound system.

Jan