How I got my Magic Mirror working on a Raspberry Pi 0 (zero)

Wieber

@Kobie Thanks for the reply!
My memories say Git worked out of the box, but my brains tells me that makes no sense since I usedJessie Lite, so it’s definitely worth editing the post (along with the other steps you mentioned, turns out that making a ‘guide’ from memory isn’t great ;) ), however I can’t edit the post anymore, maybe one of the moderators has a solution for this?

While we wait for that:
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND EVERYONE FOLLOWING THIS GUIDE TO READ BOTH @Burner911 AND @Kobie POSTS, IT MIGHT SAVE YOU SOME TIME YOU COULD SPEND IN FRONT OF YOUR FANCY MIRROR ;)

randombullet

This post is deleted!

randombullet

I’ve been working on this for a little bit and I’m sorry for all the incoming questions and posts on here.

On sudo npm install, I get npm ERR! code EPEERINVALID.

I’ve tried googling some answers but I’m not confident enough to figure this out. Also I’m writing the steps in a more linear way to make more sense of it this is what I have so far and I’d like some input so that I can help other people.

Step 2
My Jessie Lite didn’t allow me to create files for some reason. I posted on reddit here.

Anyways the way of going around this is to put in a “wpa_supplicant.conf” file into your SD card and put the following in:

network={
	ssid=”YOUR_WIFI”
	psk=”WIFI_PASSWORD”
}

This is what I have so far. Please look over this. Thanks in advanced!

1 sudo wget http://node-arm.herokuapp.com/node_latest_armhf.deb
2 sudo dpkg -i node_latest_armhf.deb
3 sudo apt-get install npm
4 sudo apt-get install git
5 cd /home/pi/
6 git clone https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror
7 cd MagicMirror
8 sudo npm install #This will take a LONG time.
9 sudo apt-get install midori
10 sudo apt-get install unclutter
11 sudo aptitude install xinit
12 sudo apt-get install matchbox
13 sudo raspi-config
14 Boot Options -> B1 Desktop/CLI -> B2 Console Autologin
15 sudo nano /home/pi/start.sh

#! /bin/bash
cd ~/MagicMirror
node serveronly &
sleep 45
sudo xinit /home/pi/startMidori.sh

16 Control + x > Y > Return
17 sudo chmod a+x /home/pi/start.sh
18 sudo mv /home/pi/start.sh /etc/init.d/startMagicMirror.sh
19 sudo update-rc.d startMagicMirror.sh defaults 100
20 sudo apt-get install x11-xserver-utils
21 sudo nano /home/pi/startMidori.sh

#!/bin/sh
xset -dpms # disable DPMS (Energy Star) features.
xset s off # disable screen saver
xset s noblank # don’t blank the video device
matchbox-window-manager &
unclutter &
midori -e Fullscreen -a http://localhost:8080

22 Control + x > Y > Return
23 sudo nano /boot/config.txt

disable_overscan=1
framebuffer_width=1050
framebuffer_height=1680
framebuffer_depth=32
framebuffer_ignore_alpha=1
hdmi_pixel_encoding=1
hdmi_group=2
display_rotate=1

24 Control + x > Y > Return

Burner911

@Wieber @Kobie

Thank you for your help! Have you had any luck scheduling your monitor to turn on and off? I can’t get mine to work with the scheduler module.

Kobie

@randombullet I got error when installing npm too, but can’t recall what they were. I just ignored them and everything works fine anyway. Try starting it up and see what happens.

@Burner911 No sorry, I haven’t try that module, but as far as I’m aware running on a Zero should impact the modules at all so it could be a separate issue.

Burner911

@Kobie I’m worried it may be something with the limited processing power of the Pi. Since the scheduler relies on the remote module as well I double checked the remote module by trying to connect remotely from my phone, but the webpage would just hang. This may be an unrelated issue, but I’ll look into it more.

When I shut down my mirror manually I see my email module is throwing errors in the background too so maybe that is drawing too many resources as well? Hard to say, I’ll report back if I find a solution.

randombullet

@Kobie So even after I did all of my steps and there were no error I rebooted and came back to the terminal screen. I midori apparently didn’t launch. Also, after I did

sudo cp config/config.js.sample config/config.js

I was presented with a blank document. Is it supposed to have anything?

Kobie

@randombullet I’m afraid I don’t think I can help much. I simply followed all the steps above and it worked for me. Perhaps you missed a step, but it would be hard to say what. Perhaps the easiest thing to do is to re-flash the jessi-lite image and go through the steps again :(

bhepler

@randombullet I think your problem is with the sudo command. You shouldn’t need sudo to copy the config.js file. Check the permissions on the the config.js file. Make sure the npm process can read it.

Burner911

@Kobie @Wieber Good news! Found out my mail module wasn’t connecting properly with my 2-step verification enabled. After switching to a “less secure app password” my mail app loaded correctly and no longer continued to stall and chew up resources in the background. As a result I was able to remotely connect once again and the scheduler works!