| Sagiadinos | https://sagiadinos.com |
| GarlicSignage | https://garlic-signage.com |
| GitHub Sagiadinos | https://github.com/sagiadinos |
| GitHub GarlicSignage | https://github.com/garlic-signage |
Dark mode? Just pseudo-nerds trying to feel important. Or so I thought.
Yesterday I added dark mode to my open-source CMS and I’ve been using it for six weeks on my computer.
Why? In early May, I had a vitreous detachment in my left eye.
Floaters, flys dots, three retinal holes. A bright screen hurts; jellyfish and spiders swirl against a white background.
At some point, life throws you right into the very box you so arrogantly despised. Without asking.
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.
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.
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/
The digital signage industry is allergic to standards and prefers SaaS with vendor lock-in.
My FOSS stack uses SMIL and Packaged Web Apps (W3C).
Just released a small but growing widget lib, plus plugins for JetBrains and VS Code.
Packaged Web Apps is technically deprecated but for signage perfect.
https://garlic-signage.com/garlic-widgets/
Curious if anyone else is fighting a SaaS-lock-in default in their field.
What standard did you bet on?
I like the approach. Sharing captures it better than hiding. Privacy is control over what I share, not hiding something shady. Going to remember that framing.
Thanks for stopping by despite being out of the racket!
"Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." — Snowden
I'm curious who uses my software. I won't spy on you to find out.
Thank you for your kind words! Still figuring out Mastodon, but so far I like it here.
