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Bitcoin : Raspberry Pi - Bitcoin standalone chart monitor

With this method you will be able to display BitcoinWisdom data or even your custom Tradingview chart into a auto-bootable fullscreen minimalist linux device. The chart stored in the Tradingview can be easily customized from any computer on-the-fly without needing to change anything on Pi.

Description

This project consists in configure RPi to load a fullscreen Chromium instance using the least possible resources. Of course, you can use this same method to display any service you want.

I will show you how to make it from scratch and also provide a ready SD Card image.

A video posted by danilo (@intrd) on


Download SD Card image

  1. RaspberryPiimageRaspbianchromiumautoloadfullscreen[v1.1-byintrd].zip
  2. Extract image with 7zip
    Use w32diskimager to write this image to your SD card (8gb card minimum)
  3. Halt Pi inicialization w/ the Emergency halt method (described at the end of this tutorial) to access terminal as root
  4. Reconfigure /boot/config.txt (display resolution), /home/pi/.xinitrc (service URL and parameters) and /etc/network/interfaces (network configuration)
  5. done, reboot

Creating your own (from scratch)

Installing dependences

Considering that you already have Pi running the pure Raspbian image, follow the steps below to instal these dependencies:

  • matchbox
  • chromium
  • x11-xserver-utils
  • ttf-mscore
  • fonts-installer
  • xwit
  • sqlite3
  • libnss3

First, update your distro... 

sudo apt-get update  
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

...then install dependencies

sudo apt-get install matchbox chromium x11-xserver-utils ttf-mscorefonts-installer xwit sqlite3 libnss3  
sudo reboot

Setting the fullscreen resolution

Edit the file /boot/config.txt, start doing the test using the settings for 1280×720 x 32bit.

Make several tests(using startx command), to get the max resolution supported by your display. 

disable_overscan=1 framebuffer_width=1280  
framebuffer_height=720  
framebuffer_depth=32  
framebuffer_ignore_alpha=1  
hdmi_pixel_encoding=1  
hdmi_group=1

Preparing X framebuffer and load automatically .xinitrc script

Now edit /etc/rc.local to prepare famebuffer to start X and also process our .xinitrc script after the Login 

# Print the IP address
_IP=$(hostname -I) || true  
if [ "$_IP" ]; then  
   printf "My IP address is %s\n" "$_IP"
fi

# Wait for the TV-screen to be turned on…
while ! $( tvservice –dumpedid /tmp/edid | fgrep -qv ‘Nothing written!’ ); do bHadToWaitForScreen=true;  
printf "===> Screen is not connected, off or in an unknown mode, waiting for it to become available…\n"  
sleep 10;  
done;

printf "===> Screen is on, extracting preferred mode…\n"  
_DEPTH=32;  
eval $( edidparser /tmp/edid | fgrep ‘preferred mode’ | tail -1 | sed -Ene ‘s/^.+(DMT|CEA) \(([0-9]+)\) ([0-9]+)x([0-9]+)[pi]? @.+/_GROUP=\1;_MODE=\2;_XRES=\3;_YRES=\4;/p’ );

printf "===> Resetting screen to preferred mode: %s-%d (%dx%dx%d)…\n" $_GROUP $_MODE $_XRES $_YRES $_DEPTH  
tvservice –explicit="$_GROUP $_MODE"  
sleep 1;

printf "===> Resetting frame-buffer to %dx%dx%d…\n" $_XRES $_YRES $_DEPTH  
fbset –all –geometry $_XRES $_YRES $_XRES $_YRES $_DEPTH -left 0 -right 0 -upper 0 -lower 0;  
sleep 1;

# autostartx (note: pi is my user)
if [ -f /boot/xinitrc ]; then  
   ln -fs /boot/xinitrc /home/pi/.xinitrc;
   su – pi -c ‘startx’ &
fi  
exit 0

… now create /home/pi/.xinitrc file (thanks to wcode.org)

#!/bin/sh
while true; do  
# Clean up previously running apps, gracefully at first then harshly
# killall -TERM chromium 2>/dev/null;
# killall -TERM matchbox-window-manager 2>/dev/null;
# sleep 2; # killall -9 chromium 2>/dev/null;
# killall -9 matchbox-window-manager 2>/dev/null;
# Clean out existing profile information
# rm -rf /home/pi/.cache;
# rm -rf /home/pi/.config;
# rm -rf /home/pi/.pki;
# Generate the bare minimum to keep Chromium happy!
# mkdir -p /home/pi/.config/chromium/Default
# sqlite3 /home/pi/.config/chromium/Default/Web\ Data "CREATE TABLE meta(key LONGVARCHAR NOT NULL UNIQUE PRIMARY KEY, value LONGVARCHAR); INSERT INTO meta VALUES(‘version’,’46′); CREATE TABLE k$
# As you can see.. i’ve disabled all cache cleanup to speedup Chromium start at the known sites (but you can turn this feature depending on your needs)

# Disable DPMS / Screen blanking
xset s off         # don't activate screensaver  
xset -dpms         # disable DPMS (Energy Star) features.  
xset s noblank     # don't blank the video device

# Reset the framebuffer’s colour-depth
fbset -depth $( cat /sys/module/*fb*/parameters/fbdepth );

# Hide the cursor (move it to the bottom-right, comment out if you want mouse interaction)
xwit -root -warp $( cat /sys/module/*fb*/parameters/fbwidth ) $( cat /sys/module/*fb*/parameters/fbheight )

# Start the window manager (remove -use_cursor no if you actually want mouse interaction)
matchbox-window-manager -use_titlebar no -use_cursor no &

# Start the browser (See http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/)
# As yoiu can see, i’ve used Bitcoinwisdom, but if you prefer, you can use your Tradingview custom graphics, like https://www.tradingview.com/e/m28VdXEw/#
sleep 10  
sleep 60  
chromium --kiosk "http://bitcoinwisdom.com"  
done;

# stay updated!
# Raspberry Pi @ Bitcoin standalone chart monitor - http://dann.com.br/raspberry-pi-bitcoin-standalone-chart-monitor/

Auto skipping Login

Edit /etc/inittab file and look for this (around line 53) 

#1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty –noclear 38400 tty1

… comment and create a new one

1:2345:respawn:/bin/login -f pi tty1 </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1  
# where pi is my username

Force static IP on eth0 (for ethernet PI users)

Considering that its a Graphical standalone monitor, it’s a good idea to cable and force static IP, to do this edit /etc/network/interfaces with this sample 

auto lo  
iface lo inet loopback  
auto eth0  
allow-hotplug eth0  
iface eth0 inet static  
address 10.0.0.22  
netmask 255.0.0.0  
gateway 10.0.0.1  
network 10.0.0.0  
broadcast 10.0.0.255

done, just reboot your Pi.

Tips

Emergency halt (to enable direct access to terminal)

When Pi is booting and showing the line: Print the IP address..

Start pressing repeatedly Ctrl+C, only stop when you’re at the prompt, like this...

Removing the Bitcoinwisdom Ads

Yes, you can remove the Bitcoinwisdom ads by using a Chromium extension.

But I highly recommend you pay at least once time the Premium Bitcoinwisdom, considering it is one of the best tools ever invented and the developers deserve some support.

Bitcoinwisdom price sound alerter

Use this Chromium extension to enable sound notifications to get informed when a price change occurs based on your criteria.

Stay updated and give some feedback

References