meta-moonforge-wpe

Adds WPE WebKit to display a configurable URL in a fullscreen kiosk window via a simple launcher.

meta-moonforge-wpe installs WPE WebKit and wpe-simple-launcher, 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, wpe-simple-launcher, and their runtime dependencies.
Provides a custom systemd service that automatically launches the browser at boot and navigates to the configured URL.

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: |
    WPE_SIMPLE_LAUNCHER_URL = "https://example.com"

machine: raspberrypi5

Configuration variables

Variable	Required	Description
`WPE_SIMPLE_LAUNCHER_URL`	Yes	The URL to navigate to at boot

Set WPE_SIMPLE_LAUNCHER_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 wpe-simple-launcher are running:

$ systemctl status weston
$ systemctl status wpe-simple-launcher

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