Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10

Mykle1

@barnosch said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

great tutorial. Will give it a try later on.
I made the complicated way around it and created a VirtualMaschine with Debian, with a standalone MM installation.
This natively running thing is way better. Thanks

You’re welcome.

Yes, MM runs beautifully on a PC running windows. Alternately, if you prefer Linux, you can install uBuntu on a PC. That also runs beautifully.

barnosch

Runs perfect on a Win 10 x64.
One thing for me is, i don’t like the fullscreen, because i want to test some stuff before i bring it to the real MM.
Try instead of
“npm start” a
“node serveronly”
This launches the MM not in full screen. You can point now to your browser and type
localhost:8080
This will show your MM installation in your favourit browser.
In my case, the better option :)

Wominator

Hi Mykle1!
Great job! I installed it on an older Lenovo Miix 8 tablet as my “kitchen mirror” and it works smooth.
Have you or anyone else tried to make a “start.bat” or something like that to auto start it with windows or by a shortcut on the desktop?
That would be a great improvement.
Thanks in advance and regards
womi

Mykle1

@Wominator said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

That would be a great improvement.

Well, I never did, but you can try this. I can’t test at the moment, but it should work. Save this as a .bat file and put it on your desktop.

:: This should work if this bat file is on the desktop
:: Also, CMD window needs ability to run bash commands (done during install of GIT)

:: Start CMD window
start cmd.exe /k

:: cd back one directory
cd ..

:: cd to MM directory
cd MagicMirror

:: start MM
npm start

Wominator

@Mykle1
Hi!
Thanks for the quick reply!
It didn’t work out that way. I found a documentation on:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21564275/windows-shortcut-to-run-git-bash-script

So, I generated a script C:\Users\USER\npmstart.sh with

cd ..
cd ~/MagicMirror
npm start

Afterwards I generated a shortcut on the desktop with following path:
"C:\Program Files\Git\bin\sh.exe" -l -i "C:\Users\USER\npmstart.sh"

And it works. It starts the Bash and runs MagicMirror and leaves the Bash open in the background, so I can get back to it by pressing the Windows-Button. (remember, I run the MagicMirror on a tablet without keyboard and mouse)
In the Bash, I can stop MagicMirror with the onscreen keyboard by pressing Ctrl+C.

Regards
womi

Mykle1

@Wominator

Well done!

Henrik

@Mykle1 Fantastic, thanks!

Mykle1

@Henrik

You’re welcome, mate! Enjoy your mirror. :-)

Peace!

Henrik

@Mykle1 I fully am. :) Now the time has come to develop my first module.

djsunrise19

I switched from raspberry to a mini-itx windows10 system, too. With my raspy system I had way too much performance issues. Thanks for your walkthrough, it works really well. But, modules like MMM-voice or Hello Lucy won’t work, am I right? That would be too bad :/.

Henrik

@djsunrise19 Maybe a bit late, but are you sure the performance issues were not caused by the incompatible Electron version? That seems to have been fixed in the latest MM (by downgrading Electron).

Anyway, MMM-voice should work, but it’ll probably be a lot of hassle to get it going!

djsunrise19

@Henrik No, I tried a lot of electron versions, a lot of raspberries, ATB, odroids. I created that electron topic :-D. I like it smooth, none of them was. All in all I have to say, that electron seems to be the problem. The renderer / the performance is too bad. Within chrome only, the website runs super smooth. With electron its a huge difference. Even under windows (8GB RAM, G4600 CPU), electron doesn’t perform like chrome does. But it’s okay, and expensive, :-D. MagicMirror V1 was a website only. Way better than V2 with the electron framework (only the performance aspect).

Perhaps @Mykle1 has an idea for MMM-voice under windows?

Mykle1

@djsunrise19 said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

Perhaps @Mykle1 has an idea for MMM-voice under windows?

The problem with MMM-voice under windows is dependencies. The installer script will not work under Windows, only Raspbian or linux. So, unless you can install the dependencies independent of the installer, you’re out of luck. I don’t even know if the dependencies are available for Windows. I never really tried to find out. Let me know if you do.

Now that you are running on a mini-itx board, you do have some options. You could make it a dual boot machine, which is fairly simple. One side Windows, one side ubuntu. Then you can run MMM-voice with Hello-Lucy like a champion.

djsunrise19

@Mykle1 Thank you! First I installed ubuntu (and ubuntu mate) on that system. But there were some graphic-issues (f.e. marquee-fx in display-rotate mode looks very awful) and my microphone doesn’t work. I checked 4 or 5 of them. I thought, MMM-voice works with windows as well.

After that I decided to go with windows. It works pretty well. More performant than ubuntu. There is only one problem: Each 10min (or something like that) there are very much git processes within the electron process (cpu usage is 70% for a few seconds, windows antivirus checks something too; MM2 lags a little bit). Don’t know why. Do you have the same with your windows environment?

Mykle1

@djsunrise19

I am no longer running MM on Windows. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve become a huge fan of ubuntu. I would recommend finding the version that works best for you. It takes a little time but it’s worth it. For me, ubuntu 16.04 is rock solid and works on every machine I’ve installed it on. I had some trouble with earlier and later versions.

IMHO, for MM, ubuntu is the way to go. You might have some trouble initially but once you find the right combination you’ll be happy with it. And hey, I think you can rotate the screen from inside ubuntu preferences. I have 2 microphones. One usb and one 3.5mm jack version. Both work with no issue under ubuntu. Even the laptops I use with ubuntu have no issue with the integrated microphones.

djsunrise19

@Mykle1 I tested two Mainboards, because ubuntu doesn’t recognize the realtek chips. Also I rotated the screen within the ubuntu options. But, thanks for your input. Who knows, if I’ll switch again ;).

Mykle1

@djsunrise19 said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

because ubuntu doesn’t recognize the realtek chips

I did not know that. Are you choosing "install 3rd party drivers during installation? This is what I do know. I’ve installed ubuntu 16.04 on a 32 bit MacBook (2006), a Compaq Presario CQ57 laptop, a Dell 1505 laptop, an HP Pavilion a6130n desktop and an HPE i7 Quad core desktop. All are problem free. All are running MMM-voice and Hello-Lucy. All drivers were installed automatically with ubuntu. All microphones work, all sound out works, all bluetooth works. I didn’t do anything special. I just installed and it works.

I’ll ask my friend who is running an mini itx board if he has any insight on this. He is running ubuntu and Hello-Lucy without a hitch.

djsunrise19

@Mykle1 A good point. I didn’t choose that 3rd party option. Perhaps there are some better graphic drivers, too. I think I’ll create a windows backup and give ubuntu a 3rd chance :-D. Using ubuntu mate shouldn’t be a problem? I like that interface a little bit more. If it doesn’t work again, I’ll make the windows recovery and try to tweak that.

Another option for voice would be an alexa skill an module. So I can use alexa for the input trigger.

Mykle1

@djsunrise19 said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

I think I’ll create a windows backup and give ubuntu a 3rd chance :-D. Using ubuntu mate shouldn’t be a problem? I like that interface a little bit more

Personally, I wouldn’t care which version name or number, as long as it’s stable and MM resides there happily.

Another option for voice would be an alexa skill an module. So I can use alexa for the input trigger.

Cool. Keep me posted.

lavolp3

Thanks Mykle1 for this great tutorial. You are the man!
Working great on Win 10 Pro 64 bit