Rust ESP32 Community Meeting 2023-02-16

[jessebraham]

Please add topics and links to this discussion.

The meeting is scheduled for 16th February 2023 - 5 pm CET/GMT+1 (a.k.a. Brno time) via Google Meet. The meeting invite is automatically sent to attendees of previous meetings. If you'd like to join, please notify us at https://matrix.to/#/#esp-rs-community-meetins:matrix.org

You can find information from the previous meeting at https://github.com/esp-rs/rust/discussions

If you find a topic exciting, click Arrow Icon or Emoji, and your vote will give the preference to the topic.

[SergioGasquez]

Rust installer

espup

• New version released: v0.2.9 that fixes installation of RISC-V targets
  • Fix Rust RISC-V toolchain installations espup#186
• Refactor espup espup#182 - Big refactor addressing the changes discussed in Where should espup install the different toolchains? espup#154
  • I'd say the refactor is done, any extra pair of eyes on the PR is more than welcome! I'll do a bit more testing and merge it if nothing comes up.

rust-build

• Supported @playfulFence with Container image that generates idf-rust tags should use espup rust-build#176
  • Clean up playfulFence/rust-build#1

ESP Templates

esp-template

• Experiment: esp-rs/esp-template@main...SergioGasquez:esp-template:feature/architectore-refactor
  • Splits the template into 2: riscv and xtensa. This reduces a lot of the complexity and improves readability of the template, but introduces some duplicated code.
    • @bjoernQ came up with a better solution IMO, see Consider restructuring the project to simplify adding support for new chips esp-template#45
  • Adds C2 support
  • Update devcontainers
  • Removes wokwi-server to use Wokwi VS Code extension in the devcontainers
• Experiment: Add cargo-outdated check esp-template#53
  • Adds a CI check that warns if there is a new version of any crate on the resulting projects
  • Do you see any value on this? Is like a custom dependabot

Other

• esp-wifi Wokwi tests: Tried running the examples with Wokwi VS Code extension
  • It works on esp32c3, esp32s2 and esp32s3 but fails on esp32
• Add current support table esp-wifi-sys#122
• Check embassy examples in CI esp-wifi-sys#132
• Add aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu binary esp-web-flash-server#7

Discussions

• Signing binaries from esp-rs
  • At the moment, we are only signing espup Windows, binaries. This is done in idf-env repo
  • I don't think this is the right place for signing Windows binaries, since it's under the espressif organization and its purpose is completely different
  • I know we don't have any way of signing binaries in esp-rs, but I think it would be beneficial to get one signing key, since we have several crates that could use it: espflash, espup, web-flash, ldproxy …
• Move web-flash to esp-rs? Maybe also publish it to crates.io once espflash 2 is released?

[jessebraham]

RE signing binaries, it's really only an issue when you're downloading the pre-compiled artifacts, right? I think the majority of people probably use cargo install, so how much of an issue is this actually? Has anybody from industry/community ever actually mentioned it?

(I try to avoid Windows so please let me know if my assumptions are incorrect)

[SergioGasquez]

RE signing binaries, it's really only an issue when you're downloading the pre-compiled artifacts, right?

Yes, this should only concern Windows users that download the binaries from the release section. I don't really know how much of an issue this is since I don't use Windows neither, maybe @georgik, who requested the feature, has more input on this.

[georgik]

Yes, it's excatly for Windows. Exe files without signature are not possible to use on Windows. Windows Defender or other antivirus will automatically move it to quaranteen or block. Binary releases makes sense for Windows users, because builds are about 40-200% slower than on macOS or Linux. Having valid signed binary artifact for Windows is really helpful for users behind corporate firewalls.

[SergioGasquez]

And would it be possible to sign those binaries from the esp-rs organization? I don't think espressif/idf-env is the right place to do so, and seems like we need to sign several binaries.

[jessebraham]

ESP-PACS

• ESP32-C6 patches for DMA and TWAI esp-pacs#91
• New releases:
  • esp32@0.0.0: https://crates.io/crates/esp32/0.20.0
  • esp32c2@0.0.0: https://crates.io/crates/esp32c2/0.8.0
  • esp32c3@0.0.0: https://crates.io/crates/esp32c3/0.11.0
  • esp32s2@0.0.0: https://crates.io/crates/esp32s2/0.11.0
  • esp32s3@0.0.0: https://crates.io/crates/esp32s3/0.14.0

ESP-HAL

• A bunch of contributions to esp32c6-hal (still in progress)
  • Add support for the ESP32-C6 esp-hal#392
  • Remove inline assembly and fixer linker scripts (sync with main)
  • Update atomic emulation configuration (sync with main)
  • Get adc, embassy_spi, mcpwm, ram, and other examples working
  • Add the ESP32-C6 to our CI workflow
  • Assorted cleanup/improvement/fixes
• Began working on SVD/PAC/HAL for the RISC-V ULP (ESP32-S3 first, then ESP32-S2)
• Handful of local branches which are still blocked

MISCELLANEOUS

• Fix some register addresses, improve macros esp-println#36
• Remove (unused) r0 dependency from Cargo manifest xtensa-lx#22
• Extract the low-level bindings into a separate package esp-wifi-sys#117

[bjoernQ]

esp-wifi

• Implemented esp-now

  • including async support

• BLE (the demo BLE stack)

  • support updating advertising data
  • support custom advertising parameters

• now looking into AP support

  • AP mode for the start (not APSTA mode for now)

esp-hal

• type-erased GPIO pins

  • AnyPin esp-hal#384

• fix I2S Circular Buffers Broken esp-hal#387

  • Fix (I2S) circular DMA esp-hal#389

• bug fix

  • Allow into_analog for all analog capable pins esp-hal#390
  • into_analog should be implemented for PINTYPE: IsAnalogPin, not OutputPin
  • ESP32: Cannot use InputOnlyAnalog gpio pins esp-hal#388

• Remove unnecessary rt crate dependencies

  • Remove unnecessary rt crate dependencies esp-hal#391
    • Re-Export necessary types
    • Makes things much easier for us and the users
    • Less problems in future

• add re-export of xtensa-lx-rt since it's needed for the interrupt level stuff

  • Make sure to re-export xtensa-lx-rt esp-hal#393 (review)

• C6

  • looked into RWDT interrupts for C6
  • C6 I2S fixed
    • Fix I2S for ESP32-C6 jessebraham/esp-hal#2

esp-backtrace

• remove unnecessary dependencies

  • remove xtensa-lx-rt dependency, use a local copy of the trap-frame, have our own Debug impl
  • remove riscv dependency
  • show a hint if RV and no strack trace elements
  • Remove unnecessary dependencies, prefix hex-numbers with 0x esp-backtrace#21
    • Prefix exception handler values with '0x' esp-backtrace#20
    • Give a hint if there are no backtrace entries on RISCV esp-backtrace#16

• better compatibility with atomic emulation

  • Use __user_exception instead of __exception esp-backtrace#22

esp-pacs

• remove dependencies to rt crates
  • Remove dependency to rt-crates esp-pacs#90

esp-template

• proposal for how the template can be simplified
  • Simplify the template esp-template#55

Other

• published new versions of a few crates
  • release esp-backtrace 0.5.0
  • release xtensa-lx 0.8.0
  • release xtensa-lx-rt-procmacros 0.2.0
  • release xtensa-lx-rt 0.15.0
  • release PACs for ESP32, ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 with updated xtensa-lx dependency

[georgik]

Rust Releases

• 1.67.0.0 - current version
• there is 1.67.1 release which seems not to impact users of our toolchain, we decided to skip this update and wait for 1.68
• 1.68.0.0 - scheduled - around 9th March 2023

Past Events

• 8th Rust CZ/SK Brno Meetup - https://www.facebook.com/events/1199689870654372/?ref=newsfeed
• Talk: Rust Embedded Development on ESP32 and basics of Async with Embassy
• presented by @georgik and @JurajSadel
• slides: https://georgik.rocks/wp-content/talks/2023-02-08-rust-cz-sk-brno-esp32/2023-02-08-rust-cz-sk-brno-esp32.pdf

Events

• Rust Nation UK - @SergioGasquez and @MabezDev attending the event
• Embedded World 2023 - https://www.embedded-world.de/ - Espressif team will be there during the whole event

Experiments

• no_std Rust invokes Zig functions - https://github.com/georgik/esp32c3-rust-zig

IDE Improvements

• opened discussion with JetBrains about Rust plugin for Idea/CLion
• experimentaly added custom esp toolchain - georgik/intellij-rust@4c95afd

[georgik]

Added GitHub topic for discussion about improvements of CLion and IntelliJ Idea: #162

[JurajSadel]

esp-hal

• C6 still in progress
• we were able to add support for every peripheral we have currently supported
• we added ADC, MCPWM, PCNT, TWAI and AES
• RTC is still in progress, at least one of slow_clks is giving the same values as esp-idf

[playfulFence]

rust-build

• • Container image that generates idf-rust tags should use espup rust-build#176
• We now use espup instead of install script
• We only publish <target>_>toolchain_version> tags that contain the environment ready to develop for both std and no_std (esp-idf-sys handles the esp-idf installation, ldproxy is pre-installed from binary)
• Reduced the size of an image after a little clean up
• Now build a project for esp-template and esp-idf-template

• Thanks @SergioGasquez for support!

[georgik]

Next meeting options:

• 2nd March
• 28th February

@SergioGasquez @MabezDev Would you be able to join?
I can't make it on 2nd March, feel free to organize event without me.

[SergioGasquez]

Would you be able to join?

I would only be able to join on 2nd March since 28th February I'll be on vacation