Raspberry Pi Zero W for Magic Mirror

[davidgagne]

How to Get MagicMirror to Run on a Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1

Late-May 2024

Huge thanks to @sdetweil for all his help!

---

1. Flash card with Legacy 32-bit.
2. Connect via ssh to run script:

   bash -c  "$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts/master/raspberry.sh)"
   

   Answer yes to disable screen saver and use pm2 questions.

3. Remove chromium with:

   sudo apt-get remove chromium-browser
   sudo apt autoremove
   

4. Add Firefox with:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install firefox-esr
   

5. Enable VNC using GUI (Interface Options):

   sudo raspi-config

6. Connect via TigerVNC (Apple app)
7. Edit installers/mm.sh via VNC using Pi's baked-in text editor by adding:

   cd ~/MagicMirror
   export external_browser=firefox
   DISPLAY=:0 npm start
   

8. Execute fix'em-up script:

   bash -c "$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts/master/fixuppm2.sh)"
   

9. cd ~/MagicMirror/
   pm2 start MagicMirror
   

10. sudo reboot

Note: On my Pi Zero W it takes a solid ten minutes from reboot to actually seeing MM output via HDMI.

[sdetweil]

@davidgagne thanks.

5 and 6 are optional
as 7 can be done with nano over ssh

   scroll down with keyboard arrow keys
   hit enter to add a line
   type the export line
   ctrl-x to exit nano, yes to save contents

8 and 9 over ssh
9 pm2 can be run from any folder location

[davidgagne]

@sdetweil Is there any reason why this same procedure would not work on a 3B+? I’ve tried with multiple different versions of the OS but it always seems to get stuck on “Updating packages …” and – as far as I can tell – there’s nothing meaningful in install.log. Is this install script unique to the Zero W?

[sdetweil]

@davidgagne no. the script works of any Debian based os. pi0 is SLOOOOOW…
but pi 3b+ should be ok. there should be a moving <-> while it’s updating… (haven’t figured out how to make that stand out more)

the script is doing apt get update, apt upgrade . this could take a while based on how much change since distro was released. over wifi, nothing I can do to speed it up.

I’ve tested on all the pi models. except the pi 1.
on odroid, Jetson nano, a chrome box and book running linux and a bunch of x86 distros., and macos Intel and arm.
I also tested on my arm chromebook, with the extra Ubuntu installed. install worked and server mode worked. no ui

if there is a problem, I’ll fix it. I’ll setup my 3b later.

[davidgagne]

@sdetweil Right. That’s my confusion. I have been able to run the script a dozen (or more) times on the Zero W, but it always fails on the 3B+, which I had assumed would be faster / better than the Zero W.

[sdetweil]

@davidgagne always fails?

what os? I’d pick the 32 it due to memory size

send me the install.log.

[capedbuffethero]

@davidgagne Wow, your summary above is just amazing! This is exactly what I was looking for.

Can you comment on why the choice of legacy OS was selected? Is there some kind of tradeoff that is being made here?

[sdetweil]

@capedbuffethero the pi0 is older armv6l processor, it can only run 32 bit mode. the memory is small on pi0,

everything that doesn’t fit in memory causes swapping, to the sd card. pi0 has the older slower sd chip.

so, use the legacy 32 bit image to reduce the footprint

[davidgagne]

@capedbuffethero Thanks! Please upvote if you found it valuable. I’m fairly new here and trying to improve my rep so all my posts aren’t held for moderation. :)

[capedbuffethero]

@davidgagne It appears I need 1 reputation to upvote.