meta-moonforge-wpe

Adds WPE WebKit to display a configurable URL in a fullscreen kiosk window via the Cog browser.

meta-moonforge-wpe installs WPE WebKit and the Cog browser shell, configured to launch a given URL in a fullscreen Wayland window at boot.

WPE (Web Platform for Embedded) is a WebKit port designed specifically for embedded targets: it is lightweight, GPU-accelerated when the hardware supports it, and actively maintained by Igalia.

What it does

Installs WPE WebKit, Cog, and their runtime dependencies.
Provides a custom systemd service that launches Cog automatically at boot and navigates to the configured URL.
Configures Cog to run fullscreen (no address bar, no tabs, no navigation controls) in a Wayland/Weston surface.

Why use it

WPE is the standard WebKit port for embedded Linux devices. It gives you a production-quality, standards-compliant browser engine in a kiosk shell with minimal footprint. Common use cases include:

Digital signage displaying web-based content.
Kiosk terminals for point-of-sale, check-in, or self-service workflows.
Industrial HMI panels driven by a web-based UI stack.
In-vehicle infotainment displays rendering HTML5 applications.

Because WPE renders into a Wayland surface, it integrates cleanly with meta-moonforge-graphics (Weston) without requiring a full desktop environment.

Dependencies

meta-moonforge-distro, required by all layers.
meta-moonforge-graphics, Weston must be running for WPE to have a Wayland surface to render into.

How to use it

header:
  version: 16
  includes:
    - repo: meta-moonforge
      file: kas/include/layer/meta-moonforge-distro.yml
    - repo: meta-moonforge
      file: kas/include/layer/meta-moonforge-raspberrypi.yml
    - repo: meta-moonforge
      file: kas/include/layer/meta-moonforge-graphics.yml
    - repo: meta-moonforge
      file: kas/include/layer/meta-moonforge-wpe.yml

local_conf_header:
  20_meta-moonforge-distro: |
    OVERLAYFS_ETC_DEVICE = "/dev/mmcblk0p3"
  30_meta-moonforge-raspberrypi: |
    WKS_FILE = "moonforge-image-base-raspberrypi.wks.in"
  30_meta-moonforge-wpe: |
    WAYLAND_COG_LAUNCH_URL = "https://example.com"

machine: raspberrypi5

Configuration variables

Variable	Required	Description
`WAYLAND_COG_LAUNCH_URL`	Yes	The URL Cog navigates to at boot

Set WAYLAND_COG_LAUNCH_URL to any valid HTTP or HTTPS URL. For development and testing, you can point it at a local server (e.g., http://10.0.2.2:8080 when using QEMU with slirp networking).

Verifying the kiosk display

After booting, you can confirm that Weston and Cog are running:

$ systemctl status weston
$ systemctl status wayland-cog-launch

If the display is blank, check the Weston log for GPU or DRM errors:

$ journalctl -u weston --no-pager | tail -40

On hardware without a GPU (e.g., QEMU without virgl), WPE falls back to software rendering, which is functional but slower.

See: meta-moonforge-wpe on GitHub