Set up of Toolchain for Linux¶
Step 0: Prerequisites¶
Install some packages¶
To compile with ESP-IDF you need to get the following packages:
Ubuntu and Debian:
sudo apt-get install git wget make libncurses-dev flex bison gperf python python-serial
Arch:
sudo pacman -S --needed gcc git make ncurses flex bison gperf python2-pyserial
Step 1: Download binary toolchain for the ESP32¶
ESP32 toolchain for Linux is available for download from Espressif website:
for 64-bit Linux:
https://dl.espressif.com/dl/xtensa-esp32-elf-linux64-1.22.0-61-gab8375a-5.2.0.tar.gz
for 32-bit Linux:
https://dl.espressif.com/dl/xtensa-esp32-elf-linux32-1.22.0-61-gab8375a-5.2.0.tar.gz
Download this file, then extract it to the location you prefer, for example:
mkdir -p ~/esp
cd ~/esp
tar -xzf ~/Downloads/xtensa-esp32-elf-linux64-1.22.0-61-gab8375a-5.2.0.tar.gz
The toolchain will be extracted into ~/esp/xtensa-esp32-elf/
directory.
To use it, you will need to update your PATH
environment variable in ~/.bash_profile
file. To make xtensa-esp32-elf
available for all terminal sessions, add the following line to your ~/.bash_profile
file:
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/esp/xtensa-esp32-elf/bin
Alternatively, you may create an alias for the above command. This way you can get the toolchain only when you need it. To do this, add different line to your ~/.bash_profile
file:
alias get_esp32="export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/esp/xtensa-esp32-elf/bin"
Then when you need the toolchain you can type get_esp32
on the command line and the toolchain will be added to your PATH
.
Arch Linux Users¶
To run the precompiled gdb (xtensa-esp32-elf-gdb) in Arch Linux requires ncurses 5, but Arch uses ncurses 6. Backwards compatibility libraries are available in AUR for native and lib32 configurations: - https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ncurses5-compat-libs/ - https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/lib32-ncurses5-compat-libs/
(Alternatively, use crosstool-NG to compile a gdb that links against ncurses 6.)
Alternative Step 1: Compile the toolchain from source using crosstool-NG¶
Instead of downloading binary toolchain from Espressif website (Step 1 above) you may build the toolchain yourself.
If you can’t think of a reason why you need to build it yourself, then probably it’s better to stick with the binary version. However, here are some of the reasons why you might want to compile it from source:
- if you want to customize toolchain build configuration
- if you want to use a different GCC version (such as 4.8.5)
- if you want to hack gcc or newlib or libstdc++
- if you are curious and/or have time to spare
- if you don’t trust binaries downloaded from the Internet
In any case, here are the steps to compile the toolchain yourself.
Install dependencies:
Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install gawk gperf grep gettext libncurses-dev python python-dev automake bison flex texinfo help2man libtool
Debian:
TODO
Arch:
TODO
Download crosstool-NG
and build it:
cd ~/esp
git clone -b xtensa-1.22.x https://github.com/espressif/crosstool-NG.git
cd crosstool-NG
./bootstrap && ./configure --prefix=$PWD && make install
Build the toolchain:
./ct-ng xtensa-esp32-elf
./ct-ng build
chmod -R u+w builds/xtensa-esp32-elf
Toolchain will be built in ~/esp/crosstool-NG/builds/xtensa-esp32-elf
. Follow instructions given in the previous section to add the toolchain to your PATH
.
Step 2: Getting ESP-IDF from github¶
Open terminal, navigate to the directory you want to clone ESP-IDF and clone it using git clone
command:
cd ~/esp
git clone --recursive https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git
ESP-IDF will be downloaded into ~/esp/esp-idf
.
Note the --recursive
option! If you have already cloned ESP-IDF without this option, run another command to get all the submodules:
cd ~/esp/esp-idf
git submodule update --init
IMPORTANT: The esp-idf build system does not support spaces in paths to esp-idf or to projects.
Step 3: Starting a project¶
ESP-IDF by itself does not build a binary to run on the ESP32. The binary “app” comes from a project in a different directory. Multiple projects can share the same ESP-IDF directory.
The easiest way to start a project is to download the template project from GitHub:
cd ~/esp
git clone https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf-template.git myapp
This will download esp-idf-template
project into ~/esp/myapp
directory.
Step 4: Building and flashing the application¶
In terminal, go to the application directory which was obtained on the previous step:
cd ~/esp/myapp
Type a command like this to set the path to ESP-IDF directory:
export IDF_PATH=~/esp/esp-idf
At this point you may configure the serial port to be used for uploading. Run:
make menuconfig
Then navigate to “Serial flasher config” submenu and change value of “Default serial port” to match the serial port you will use. Also take a moment to explore other options which are configurable in menuconfig
.
Special note for Arch Linux users: navigate to “SDK tool configuration” and change the name of “Python 2 interpreter” from python
to python2
.
Now you can build and flash the application. Run:
make flash
This will compile the application and all the ESP-IDF components, generate bootloader, partition table, and application binaries, and flash these binaries to your development board.
Further reading¶
If you’d like to use the Eclipse IDE instead of running make
, check out the Eclipse setup guide in this directory.