After some tinkering I have found the /answer/
When I said via command line I actually meant via putty from a windows PC. I now realise this is an entirely different thing, and was the root of the issue.
Running the commands (and indeed the bash files) from the 'Terminal' window worked fine.
That's an important detail. Still it's a lesson learned.
I then ran into an issue with launching the scripts from crontab, but this was resolved by using DISLAY=:0.0 before the vlc command.
From cron? With @reboot? If so, I'm somewhat surprised it works as cron starts and run @reboot jobs before the desktop has started. cvlc might work though - it's not something I've used.
Statistics: Posted by thagrol — Fri May 23, 2025 9:23 pm