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Years ago it was really hard to run digital signage on Linux. No real free drivers, old kernels, tons of reverse engineering. (mastodon.social)

submitted 6 days ago by sagiadinos@mastodon.social to c/linux@programming.dev

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Years ago it was really hard to run digital signage on Linux. No real free drivers, old kernels, tons of reverse engineering.

That's largely over now.

RK3588 is the go-to platform, Mali finally has open drivers (Panfrost/Panthor), and hardware video decode landed in mainline in early 2026.

I'm the dev behind the GarlicSignage stack and dug into the current state:

https://garlic-signage.com/resources/technology/linux-digital-signage/

#DigitalSignage #Linux #FOSS #opensource @linux

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[–] refalo@programming.dev 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Years ago it was really hard to run digital signage on Linux.

No problems here doing it commercially since 2009...

[–] sagiadinos@mastodon.social 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

@refalo

Interesting. What hardware did you use?
In 2009 it was mostly x86 PCs, which run Linux fine since decades.

My research focused more on cheap and efficient ARM devices, where we now have far more alternatives with free drivers than back then.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 3 points 5 days ago

We mostly used small form-factor mini PCs from Polywell.

[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Maybe you're thinking of how it used to be companies with proprietary solutions, like AMX? Yeah, there are lots of ways to replace those devices, now.

[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

You ever hear of Porteus?

Two jobs ago, I oversaw a few dozen TV's with Windows XP embedded. They basically booted up and ran a PowerPoint presentation on a loop. Obviously, the XP part was a problem in 2017, so I did some research, and found that the closest thing to what we had was Porteus.

Porteus turns the machine into a kiosk that can be very locked down, automatically reboot, etc. It worked a treat for me.

Edit: Garlic seems interesting. I managed my machines with VNC, but that wouldn't scale very well at all. Not in the signage game anymore, or I'd be messing with it for sure.

[–] sagiadinos@mastodon.social 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

@s38b35M5

Japp! Porteus Kiosk is a great fit for exactly that kind of locked-down, read-only setup. Solid choice for replacing those XP boxes.

And you nailed the real pain point: VNC just doesn't scale past a handful of machines.

Once you're managing dozens, you need management functions that run centrally from the CMS, reboot, update, status, not logging into each device one by one. That's where remote-desktop tools make things complicated.

[–] BetterDev@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This reads like LLM output.

Are you a human who is using an LLM to make your message cleaner? Or are you a bot?

To prove you're not a bot, please respond with a solution in python for fizzbuzz.