🔁 Autostart RoninsPiKivyDashboard on Boot

This guide shows how to configure your Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (running Raspberry Pi OS Lite) to automatically start the Kivy dashboard after booting.

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🧱 Assumptions

• You already installed and tested RoninsPiKivyDashboard manually
• It runs successfully with python main.py
• You are using a virtual environment .venv

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⚙️ Option 1: Autostart using .bash_profile (simplest for testing)

Edit the file:

nano ~/.bash_profile

Add the following:

cd ~/RoninsPiKivyDashboard
source .venv/bin/activate
python main.py

✅ This runs the dashboard whenever the user logs in via terminal.

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🪟 Option 2: Autostart with a systemd service (recommended)

1. Create a new systemd service file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/roninspikivy.service

2. Paste the following content:

[Unit]
Description=RoninsPiKivyDashboard
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=pi
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/RoninsPiKivyDashboard
ExecStart=/home/pi/RoninsPiKivyDashboard/.venv/bin/python /home/pi/RoninsPiKivyDashboard/main.py
Restart=always
Environment=PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reexec
sudo systemctl enable roninspikivy.service
sudo systemctl start roninspikivy.service

4. To check status or logs:

systemctl status roninspikivy.service
journalctl -u roninspikivy.service -b

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🛑 Disable or remove the service

sudo systemctl stop roninspikivy.service
sudo systemctl disable roninspikivy.service
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/roninspikivy.service

🧠 This method runs your dashboard in the background and survives reboots.