ESP-IDF on WSL2 - Build, Flash and Monitor

esp-idf-on-wsl2.md

ESP-IDF on WSL2 - Build, Flash and Monitor ⚡

Demo

Intro

WSL2 still does not support USB devices, but with a little effort we can make possible to flash and monitor ESP device from WSL2.

Info:
Tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Debian distributions.

For flashing and monitoring over the serial COM port, I've wrote this compact idfx shell script.

Note:
As a prerequisite for using idfx, Python 🐍 needs to be installed on the Windows.

More about idfx you can find in official repository.

Ok, that was short intro, now you can open WSL and start to execute next commands.

Commands 📜

Installation 🚀

• Update Linux
  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

• Install tools required for esp-idf
  sudo apt install -y git wget flex bison gperf python3 python3-pip python3-setuptools cmake ninja-build ccache libffi-dev libssl-dev dfu-util libusb-1.0-0

• Make python3 as default python
  sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3 1

• Make pip3 as default pip
  sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/pip pip /usr/bin/pip3 1

• Make esp directory and go inside
  cd ~ && mkdir esp && cd esp

• Clone esp-idf repository
  git clone --recursive https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git

• Modify esp-idf installation script to work with WSL
  cd esp-idf && ! grep -q "dirname --" install.sh; [ $? -eq 0 ] && sed -i 's/dirname/dirname --/g' install.sh

• Run esp-idf installation script
  . ./install.sh || true

• Add esp-idf export script to the user profile script in order to make isp-idf tools visible on the PATH for every session
  echo -e '\n\n. $HOME/esp/esp-idf/export.sh > /dev/null 2>&1 || true' >> ~/.profile

• Install idfx ( ? )
  wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abobija/idfx/main/idfx -O $HOME/.local/bin/idfx && chmod u+x $HOME/.local/bin/idfx

• Source profile script to add all necessary tools to the PATH
  . ~/.profile || true

Create (a copy of hello_world) project 📄

• Make a copy of hello_world example project in home directory
  cd ~ && cp -r $IDF_PATH/examples/get-started/hello_world .

Build, flash and monitor ⚡

• Go inside of project
  cd hello_world

• Set target
  idf.py set-target esp32

• Configure
  idf.py menuconfig

• Build
  idf.py build

• Flash
  ^{(open Device Manager on Windows to find COM port of your ESP, mine is COM2)}
  idfx flash COM2

• Monitor
  ^{(change COM2 with your port)}
  idfx monitor COM2
  _{(To exit monitor press CTRL+] or CTRL+T,X)}

Tip:
Flash and monitor with single command:
idfx flash COM2 monitor

That's it.
Happy coding and flashing! ⚡

Author

abobija - abobija.com