SimpleKiosk

Turn any x86 device into a simple web kiosk

Description

This project uses Nix to build an ISO that will install NixOS onto any x86 device. The ISO installs NixOS with whatever config you put in ./configuration.nix. In this case, its building a barebones kiosk that will just sit on a wall, load a webpage, and reset itself after a certain period of inactivity.

Getting Started

You can build your own ISO on any system with Nix installed.

How do I install nix?

• Windows
  • I recommend NixOS-WSL
• macOS
  • Nix Package Manager for macOS
• Linux
  • Nix Package Manager for Linux

I have Nix installed. How do I build the ISO?

In your terminal, clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/BrettZolstick/simpleKiosk.git 
cd simpleKiosk

then build with Nix. (This will take a few minutes)

nix build

The ISO will be created here:

 ./simplekiosk
  └── Result
    └── iso
      └── nixos-minimal-*-x86_64-linux.iso

Please Note: The result is a symlink to the nix store, which cannot be navigated in windows explorer. If you're on windows and plan on using a tool like rufus to burn the image to a usb, copy it to a normal location like this.

cp ./result/iso/nixos-minimal-*-x86_64-linux.iso  /mnt/c/Users/<Your Username Here>/Downloads/NixOS-Kiosk.iso

I have the ISO, how do I burn it to a USB?

• Use the dd command (use with caution)

# find your usb device name first 
lsblk

# make sure not to wipe the wrong drive 
dd if=./result/iso/nixos-minimal-*-x86_64-linux.iso of=/dev/<Drive Name> bs=4M status=progress 

(or)

• Use Rufus in dd mode

Changing the configuration

• Most of the changes that you'll want to make are probably in ./kioskConfig/basicConfig.nix. Please refer to the comments in this file for instruction. It should be pretty self explanitory.

• Because the installer pulls directly from the selected github repo, If you want to make changes to your own config, please fork this repo. You will need to point the config at your own repo by changing the value in ./kioskConfig/basicConfig.nix

• For more advanced changes to the kiosk, see ./kioskConfig/advancedConfig.nix. If you're familar with NixOS already, then you can make whatever changes you want here. Otherwise I reccomend the following learning resources.

  • NixOS Options Search
  • NixOS Package Search
  • NixOS Wiki
  • NixOS and Flakes guide
  • Vimjoyer's github and Youtube Channel
  • Tony's github and Youtube Channel
  • The Unofficial NixOS Discord
  • Good old ChatGPT

  Also feel free to raise an issue or make a post in discussions and I'll help out where I can.

Acknowledgments

• Linux
• NixOS
• Sway
• Plymouth