Hello everyone,

I got the assignement to transform a Raspberry Pi into a Videolooper on Startup. The thing is, i have never worked with a Raspberry Pi at all. So my first thought was to install Raspberry Pi OS on it.
One main Problem is, that i cannot connect the rasp to the internet. So i was forced to only use the utilities given with the OS(vlc media is installed). And on top of that i saw this as a learning opportunity (so dont use OS image files ), so im basically trying to write a script to loop the presentation.
I was able to get to a point where Rasp plays the video on startup. I did that with a .desktop file. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=17051
Now the problem with the Method described in the post is that you have to have the Video file located at a specific spot on the rasp with a specific name.

But the looper has one main cirteria:
- the video is supposed to be located on a usb stick, with ideally no name
specifications

I have been trying to run everything through a bashscript but find myself limited by my minimal knowledge on Linux.

I got a hint to try using systemd services. That's a thing Im looking into.

Im not expecting anyone to give me a full script on how to create a videolooper. Id sum up my post in a couple of questions:

1. Does it make sense to use a Bashscript for this particular purpous.

2. If Bashscripts are the way to go, how do I retrieve a file from a usb-stick using a
Bashscript.

3. Does anyone have some good reasources to learn about systemd services or .desktop
or at the very least some nudges to the write direction?

Create the bash script to do what you need done.

Then create a systemd .service file in /usr/lib/systemd/system/ to run that bash script whenever the usb device is plugged in and mounted or use a .desktop file to run it whenever the user logs in.

The .service file can be used to run it at bootup or at mount time. A service is not dependent upon a user logged in, though the DE & DM must be fully operational for something like vlc to display on the screen. This usually requires a user to be logged in for the DE & DM to be active.

A .desktop file and the method used in that link can be used for running the script at login (or at boot if you configure the user for auto-login at boot time.) The user already logged in meets the requirement for the DE & DM to be active to support vlc display.

You can design the script to run as a daemon so it can be started at boot and will run in the background, sleeping, and wait for a usb device to be plugged in and execute when that occurs. This is essentially what a service does for many things.

In any case the script must be configured to verify the usb device is present before it can run vlc on the video files contained.

Setting anything up to run automatically means you must set certain conditions for the path to the files being used and those conditions must always be met or the app will fail. Scripting can use if-then or case tests and loops to select from a variety of options within the script itself while executing.

Hope this gives you some ideas on how to structure your app.

1 members found this post helpful.

Welcome to LinuxQuestions

If you can connect the Pi to the internet there is already software for a video looper. I assume by now it is built for the lastest version of Pi OS.

https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-video-looper/

1 members found this post helpful.

Hello Guys.

First off all, thank you very much for your inputs. It's very much appreciated.
I have a few follow up questions though.

I cant use the downloading of other tools because i have no internet on the pi where i am at. So I'm trying to use the tools given from the start. Such as vlc media.
My current issue is that when I start vlc Media player the thread of my Bashscript stops. I wanted to make it so that when you start vlc media player the script continues in a loop where it waits for the user to unplugg the usb-stick.
When that happenes it returns into a loop where the pi waits for the user to insert the usb stick. But it never gets past the command where i launch vlc media player. So when i unplugg the usb stick it just continues playing the presentation.
How would i deal with that?

This is how my Bashscript looks like at the Moment:
------------------------------
#!/bin/bash

DIR="/media/pi"
DIR2="/home/pi/Videos"

if [ "$(ls -A $DIR2)" ]; then
sudo rm /home/pi/Videos/*.mp4
fi

while true
do

if [ "$(ls -A $DIR)" ]; then

FILE=$(find /media/pi -maxdepth 2 -name *.mp4)

cp $FILE /home/pi/Videos/movie.mp4
vlc /home/pi/Videos/movie.mp4 <- this is where the thread stops

while [ "$(ls -A $DIR)" ]
do
echo "usb is still plugged in"
sleep 30
done

pkill vlc

fi

done