How to install PhantomJS for use with Python Selenium on the Raspberry Pi?

Question

I want to run a Python script using Selenium WebDriver with PhantomJS as a headless browser on my Raspberry Pi running Raspbi

Answer 1

Ok I will start with the solution, there is a version compiled for arm here phantomjs-linux-armv6l, on the pi run the following commands:

$ cd /tmp
$ wget https://github.com/aeberhardo/phantomjs-linux-armv6l/archive/master.zip
$ unzip master.zip
$ cd phantomjs-linux-armv6l-master
$ bunzip2 *.bz2 && tar xf *.tar

I added:

sudo cp phantomjs-1.9.0-linux-armv6l/bin/phantomjs  /usr/bin

So phantomjs will be on your path.

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ phantomjs --version
1.9.0

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ phantomjs
phantomjs> 

Now we have that done, time to test:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat test.py
#!/usr/bin/python
from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.PhantomJS()
driver.get('http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36314771/how-to-install-phantomjs-for-use-with-python-selenium-on-the-raspberry-pi/36388824#36388824')
a = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="question-header"]/h1/a')
print(a.text)
print(driver)
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ python test.py 
How to install PhantomJS for use with Python Selenium on the Raspberry Pi?
<selenium.webdriver.phantomjs.webdriver.WebDriver (session="b184e110-f9c4-11e5-aede-7f5c42f062d7")>

From the faq. Starting with PhantomJS 1.5, it is pure headless and there is no need to run X11/Xvfb anymore..

I tried using xvfb-run and exporting the display, using a shell script in init.d to start xvfb, I got a little further being able to run iceweasel from bash headless no problem but still no cigar when it came to phantomjs and selenium. I think it may just come down to an incompatibility between selenium and the version of phantomjs, regardless having 1.9.0 and real headless browsing is a lot more desirable.

I was in the middle of setting up a toolchain and was going to try to compile myself when I found the link above, for anyone interested in cross compiling, crosstools-ng makes life a lot easier.

I am running an arm6, there is also a compiled version for arm7 using 2.0.0, the dependencies are:

sudo apt-get install flex bison gperf ruby perl libsqlite3-dev libfontconfig1-dev libicu-dev libfreetype6 libssl-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev python libX11-dev libxext-dev

The install procedure, I have extracted the binary to dropbox:

wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/epj1rji9d239dco/phantomjs
chmod +x phantomjs
sudo cp phantomjs /usr/bin

The original github link is phantomjs-2.0.0-armv7

Answer 2

Here's how I did it :

For 64-bit system, download phantomjs-1.9.7-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 (12.6 MB).
For 32-bit system, download phantomjs-1.9.7-linux-i686.tar.bz2 (12.9 MB).

Step 1> $ wget https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-1.9.7-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2

Step 2> $ tar -xvf phantomjs-1.9.7-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2

Step 3> $ cd phantomjs-1.9.7-linux-x86_64

Step 4> $ cd bin

Step 5> $ sudo cp phantomjs /usr/bin

To check phantomjs installed properly perform the following step : 

Step 6> $ phantomjs -h

To install the dependencies on Red Hat based systems:

Step 7> $ sudo yum install fontconfig freetype libfreetype.so.6 libfontconfig.so.1 libstdc++.so.6

Answer 3

Download this phantomjs file https://drive.google.com/open?id=1x063Krw6mZkRYW4K238a3EyRdklj5Evj

Replace to needed folder.

Give 777 chmod: chmod 777 phantomjs

And try to use.

For Grafana - phantomjs file must be in a folder: /usr/share/grafana/tools/phantomjs/.

This binary file work to me on Banana pi M3 Debian 9. Architecture: arm armv7l. Kernel 4.20.7-sunxi