MagicMirror^2 without GUI/windowmanager

john_alan · Jul 22, 2019, 10:37 AM

Hello,

I’m trying to run magic mirror on a Pi4 to make a dashboard for my office.

I find the responsiveness slow and clunky. Is it possible to run MM without a GUI, i.e. from single user mode/terminal only. I think the window manager is slowing it down.

When I say slow I mean that on launch it stalls for 20 seconds, and then at times the clock stalls and doesn’t show the seconds update.

Also my Sky News plugin skips and stalls.

Any ideas?

john_alan · Jul 22, 2019, 10:42 AM

Just to clarify, I’m trying to run without a desktop environment.

tcsabina · Jul 22, 2019, 10:45 AM

Why the struggle?
Just install Raspbian, and run MM as described in the howto…

john_alan · Jul 22, 2019, 10:46 AM

@tcsabina thanks, but I’m finding MM really slow and clunky when running on my 2gb Pi4 with stock (up to date) Buster.

I thought without the Desktop/GUI/Window Manager, it might perform better. Is it possible to run without the desktop environment, from the terminal?

tcsabina · Jul 22, 2019, 10:52 AM

I see.

Sounds strange that you have bad performance with Pi4. We all run it on Pi3 without serious problem…
There might be issues with your Pi4, don’t you think?
Or maybe give another distro a try (the one before).

But back to the original question:
I am not into the core of MM, so I cannot really help. I am not sure if you need X server for the MM window…

sdetweil · Jul 22, 2019, 11:23 AM

@john_alan well, you run serveronly mode… which doesn’t present a UI locally…
but access via a browser from other systems.

john_alan · Jul 22, 2019, 12:56 PM

@sdetweil said in MagicMirror^2 without GUI/windowmanager:

@john_alan well, you run serveronly mode… which doesn’t present a UI locally…

Ok thanks all.

Think it might be my resolution being too high!