Arduino Nano ESP32 turns into an ultra-low-powered, pocket-sized Linux PC

Whereas many customers get them confused, microcontroller improvement boards and single-board computer systems are very various things. Single-board computer systems can run full working methods, like your desktop PC or laptop computer does. Microcontroller improvement boards, like these from Arduino, are often restricted to less complicated firmware. However as microcontrollers develop into extra highly effective, the road will get blurrier. To show that, Naveen Kumar constructed an extremely low-powered moveable Linux laptop based mostly on the brand new Arduino Nano ESP32 improvement board.

By fashionable PC requirements, the ESP32-S3 microcontroller within the Nano ESP32 board lacks each processing energy and reminiscence. However simply a few a long time in the past, the 240MHz clock velocity and 512kB of SRAM would have been thought of respectable for a light-weight working system. Clearly, that’s nonetheless sufficient to run an working system at present. However there are different challenges that Kumar needed to overcome to make that work.

On the {hardware} facet, Kumar used a Nano ESP32 together with an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi, a CardKB mini keyboard, and a 2.8″ Adafruit TFT touchscreen. The Nano ESP32 acts as a headless laptop, whereas the UNO R4 WiFi, keyboard, and touchscreen act as a terminal to entry that laptop’s command line. Most Linux distros wouldn’t run on an ESP32 microcontroller, as a result of they anticipate a special structure and instruction set. However Max Filippov already ported Linux to work with the Xtensa instruction set utilized by the ESP32.

Kumar explains learn how to compile the kernel for that port and flash it to the Nano ESP32, in addition to the UNO R4 WiFi sketch. {Hardware} setup is fast and straightforward. You received’t be capable to use this to run the most recent triple-A video games, however it is possible for you to to work with an actual Linux OS by means of the terminal.