Ubuntu – How to open chromium full screen

chromiumcommand linedisplay-resolutionpermissionsxorg

I need to open chromium full screen from the terminal.

I have tried editing ~/.config/chromium/Preferences as described, for example in an answer to this thread: How to open Chromium in full screen kiosk mode in minimal windows manager environment

As such:

"window_placement": {
   "bottom": 1080,
   "left": 0,
   "maximized": true,
   "right": 1920,
   "top": 0,
   "work_area_bottom": 1080,
   "work_area_left": 0,
   "work_area_right": 1920,
   "work_area_top": 0
}

The problem is, Chromium changes the file back to its original contents! I have tried setting root to owner with sudo chown root Preferences Then running sudo chmod -R 755 Preferences. The file is then displayed as belonging to root and user can only read and execute. I start an X session as root, and chromium is started as user:

sudo xinit -e "su user chromium-browser"

and yet the browser opens with borders at the top and bottom as before. I then check the file and it now belongs to user again with rw permissions!

How do I stop Chromium from editing the file?

Best Answer

As many of chromium's command-line options are “added and removed at the whim of the developers”, man chromium-browser only documents a few “relatively stable flags.”

A developer How-to however links to this list of options, where among many others you find:

--start-fullscreen
        Specifies if the browser should start in fullscreen mode,
        like if the user had pressed F11 right after startup.

A quick test with Chromium 61.0.3163.100 reveals that this option works at least with this version:

chromium-browser --start-fullscreen
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