This is based on how RetroPie does its autologin and autostart which you can find in scriptmodules/supplementary/autostart.sh in the RetroPie-Setup source.
This works in Ubuntu and Raspbian, it probably works in any systemd distro.
mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/
Create a file at /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/autologin.conf with contents:
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin USERNAME --noclear %I \$TERM
Replace USERNAME with the actual username to login.
You can now reboot and test this.
If you want to start something on startup, then create a file /etc/profile.d/10-runthing.sh with contents like:
if [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ]; then
THING
fi
Replace THING with the command to run. You could run tmux so you never forget. You could compile DOSBox so it runs on the framebuffer and you appear to have a DOS computer, which is why I wanted to do this.
