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Installation on Raspberry Pi

You can install Kivy manually, or you can download and boot KivyPie on the Raspberry Pi. Both options are described below.

Manual installation (On Raspbian Jessie/Stretch)

  1. Install the dependencies:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev \
   pkg-config libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
   python-setuptools libgstreamer1.0-dev git-core \
   gstreamer1.0-plugins-{bad,base,good,ugly} \
   gstreamer1.0-{omx,alsa} python-dev libmtdev-dev \
   xclip xsel

  2. Install a new enough version of Cython:

    sudo pip install -U Cython==0.29.9

  3. Install Kivy globally on your system:

    sudo pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master

# Note: on recent Raspian stretch, using git with root user gives you a warning
# and prevent you to correctly use this.

# Method 1: delete /root/bin/git as the message explained
sudo rm /root/bin/git
sudo pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master

# Method 2: clone locally then pip install
git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy
sudo pip install .

  4. Or build and use kivy inplace (best for development):

    git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy

make
echo "export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd):\$PYTHONPATH" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile

Note

On versions of kivy prior to 1.10.1, Mesa library naming changes can result in “Unable to find any valuable Window provider” errors. If you experience this issue, please upgrade or consult ticket #5360.

Manual installation (On Raspbian Wheezy)

  1. Add APT sources for Gstreamer 1.0 in /etc/apt/sources.list:

    deb http://vontaene.de/raspbian-updates/ . main

  2. Add APT key for vontaene.de:

    gpg --recv-keys 0C667A3E
gpg -a --export 0C667A3E | sudo apt-key add -

  3. Install the dependencies:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev \
   pkg-config libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
   python-setuptools libgstreamer1.0-dev git-core \
   gstreamer1.0-plugins-{bad,base,good,ugly} \
   gstreamer1.0-{omx,alsa} python-dev

  4. Install pip from source:

    wget https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py

  5. Install Cython from sources (debian packages are outdated):

    sudo pip install Cython==0.29.9

  6. Install Kivy globally on your system:

    sudo pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master

  7. Or build and use kivy inplace (best for development):

    git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy

make
echo "export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd):\$PYTHONPATH" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile

Manual installation (On Arch Linux ARM)

  1. Install the dependencies:

    sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S sdl2 sdl2_gfx sdl2_image sdl2_net sdl2_ttf sdl2_mixer python-setuptools

Note: python-setuptools needs to be installed through pacman or it will result with conflicts!

  2. Install pip from source:

    wget https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py

  3. Install a new enough version of Cython:

    sudo pip install -U Cython==0.29.9

  4. Install Kivy globally on your system:

    sudo pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master

  5. Or build and use kivy inplace (best for development):

    git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy
python setup.py install

Images to use:

http://raspex.exton.se/?p=859 (recommended)
https://archlinuxarm.org/

Note

On versions of kivy prior to 1.10.1, Mesa library naming changes can result in “Unable to find any valuable Window provider” errors. If you experience this issue, please upgrade or consult ticket #5360.

KivyPie distribution

KivyPie is a compact and lightweight Raspbian based distribution that comes with Kivy installed and ready to run. It is the result of applying the manual installation steps described above, with a few more extra tools. You can download the image from http://kivypie.mitako.eu/kivy-download.html and boot it on a Raspberry PI.

Running the demo

Go to your kivy/examples folder, you’ll have tons of demo you could try.

You could start the showcase:

cd kivy/examples/demo/showcase
python main.py

3d monkey demo is also fun too see:

cd kivy/examples/3Drendering
python main.py

Change the default screen to use

You can set an environment variable named KIVY_BCM_DISPMANX_ID in order to change the display used to run Kivy. For example, to force the display to be HDMI, use:

KIVY_BCM_DISPMANX_ID=2 python main.py

Check Controlling the environment to see all the possible values.

Using Official RPi touch display

If you are using the official Raspberry Pi touch display, you need to configure Kivy to use it as an input source. To do this, edit the file ~/.kivy/config.ini and go to the [input] section. Add this:

mouse = mouse
mtdev_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=mtdev
hid_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=hidinput

For more information about configuring Kivy, see Configure Kivy

Where to go ?

We made few games using GPIO / physical input we got during Pycon 2013: a button and a tilt. Checkout the https://github.com/kivy/piki. You will need to adapt the GPIO pin in the code.

A video to see what we were doing with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVM09gaX6pQ