Challenges in Building MicroPython ESP32 Firmware with esp-idf and msys2 on Windows 10

[qqjyh]

Since it is widely agreed that esp-idf (on Windows) requires make CROSS to first generate mpy-cross.exe in the micropython\mpy-cross build directory, I successfully installed the toolchain in the Windows 10 msys2 environment and ran make in micropython\mpy-cross, which worked. Testing make CROSS=1 in micropython\ports\minimal also succeeded.

However, running make CROSS in micropython\ports\esp32 requires idf.py from esp-idf, which cannot be launched in the msys2 terminal (it throws an error about missing import click). Naturally, I proceeded to install esp-idf using the Windows installer. My question is: how can the esp-idf Windows CMD terminal and the msys2 Linux-like terminal work together?

Should I run idf.py build in the esp-idf Windows CMD terminal (and if so, how can it utilize the msys2 make cross-compilation toolchain and mpy-cross.exe)? Or should I run make CROSS=1 in the msys2 terminal (for the micropython\ports\esp32 directory—and if so, how would it recognize that esp-idf is already installed)?

[andrewleech]

Just for some background context, is there a particular reason you want to be able to use msys2 as your build environment?

I ask because I was a daily user of msys2 as the foundation of my development environment for many years, but this is going back 8-10 years ago.

Since wsl was released I switched completely to that and never looked back.

Doubly so with docker now, it can be leveraged to make development and compiling just so easy.

Even on windows, if you install docker, you can then never look at it again directly by using mpbuild to compile micropython, it'll handle all the docker stuff behind the scenes to get and use the right toolchain for each port.

That being said I know it's intended to work on native windows / docker, but is mostly used from wsl / Linux so sometimes the windows support gets accidentally broken. It's usually fixed quickly though I believe.

If you're interested, take a look at https://github.com/mattytrentini/mpbuild

Otherwise please do share what you like about msys2!

[qqjyh]

Thank you for sharing your expertise and suggestions. I'm not familiar with shell scripting/batch processing across systems, and I simply want a straightforward way to operate on Windows 10 that allows me to conveniently observe file changes during the build process