Minimalist MagicMirror [Fast Boot, ReadOnly, ClientOnly, RPi3B+]

[CluelessGenius]

sooo…i been playing with this idea in general for a while now before i finally discovered MagicMirror² to be the perfect solution for what i was planning on doying all from scratch.

this thread i thought could be helpful to those who also want nothing but MM² on there pi.
Disclaimer: Im not new to software/-development but i am new to linux and all that comes with it soo correct me, give some tips and suggestions if you think im being stupid.

heres the deal:
im mounting the mirror in the bathroom.
construction is done.
the problem is my bathroom doesnt provide constant power at all. everything is linked with the light switch.
shit.
so ill run MM on a second pi i have up and running all the time anyway.
and run the bathroom pi as client only.
…with the fastest boot time i can physical do given my limited expertise.

ill go through all the steps i do and try, wether they work or not.
im hoping when its done it can be helpful for others and while im tinkering i hope the community can help me out with some helpful tips here and there ;)

[CluelessGenius]

starting off with Raspbian Stretch Lite on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ for the bathroom client

…or do i absolutly need the full version?

[sdetweil]

u might consider some battery backup mechanism, to allow you to shutdown gracefully, and resume

[CluelessGenius]

@sdetweil thought about it but with the ratio of time that the light/power is on to the time the light/power is off being as it is. i dont think thats a solution since any battery pack will run out of juice eventually when you pull more than you put in.
i thought id try running read only first but if it doenst work guess i could get a small ups board to at least shutdown and wake up properly.
but right now boot time is a somewhat more important problem to me. sadly i do need network and wifi. and graphics. all not very optimal. ill see what i can do i guess.

[sdetweil]

@CluelessGenius i was suggesting to use the battery to shutdown (suspend)… then no usage…
sort of like this
http://raspi-ups.appspot.com/en/index.jsp

this would give the fastest restart time…

battery would recharge when power comes back on…

I have a battery bank that lasts a month or more…

[CluelessGenius]

@sdetweil thanks i will think about it but nontheless id still have to boot up every time and therefore i need to figure out boot time

[dazza120]

@CluelessGenius go for SSD that’s how mine is booting

[CluelessGenius]

@dazza120 not sure what you mean by that and usind an ssd sounds expensive for this kind of project and really like a hassle tto setup. is thze pay-off that good?

[CluelessGenius]

alright so now i have my server running and working on a windows notebook following the guide on this forum.

i had problems getting mm to run on stretch lite and noticed how the instructions called for full stretch so i switched. now technically its running.
but the autostart only works when booting to desktop, which costs time.
pm2-pi.service in general eats too much damn time.
so back to console and scratch the pm2.
but i have yet to figure out how to run it from console at all.

[sdetweil]

@CluelessGenius open a terminal window, ctrl-alt-t

cd MagicMirror

Then npm start