ESP8266 FreeRTOS SDK updates and installation

[mjoy99]

I feel like the ESP8266 FreeRTOS SDK (https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... index.html) is a forgotten/dead project. It talks about adding esp8266 to the regular ESP-IDF, but it doesn't appear that has happened.

The trials and tribulations from deprecated packages under pre-requisites to broken idf and other pytools, the FreeRTOS SDK is barely useable. It took me a week just to get it installed and able to run the simple example/hello-world app on a standard nodeMCU. PlatformIO was no help either for the esp8266, as it's SDK was deprecated over a decade ago for the framework in questions

Either update the FreeRTOS SDK and tools or finish the port to the 32's ESP-IDF.

Does anyone have a go to guide to get a decent working development environment, or is everyone just set on using Arduino framework?

[ahsrabrifat]

If you need to work with FreeRTOS, I think it's better to move away from ESP8266. Use ESP32 instead.

[oliverb]

There are many issues regarding the ESP8266. The Arduino IDE has added so much bloat that it has become useless. One of the many issues using the ESP8266 IDF is the lack of current install procedures which realy would not take long if Expressif assigned the task to someone in house. But in all fairness, this isn't as much an Expressif issue as much as a very common Linux issue. Linus had not, and has never had, a standard installer across all distributions. And people keep using python for things it was not designed for. I tried to install the ESP8266 toolchain and it is a nightmare because python has changed so much.

I have several project for the ESP8266 that don't require the ESP32 but because the toolchain cannot be installed and works, it hopeless. AN all the Arduino IDE is generate trash, what an Embarassment for MicroChip, the parent company.

As much as I understand, Expressif is dong a disservice to their users and damaging their own reputation by simply not declaring the product End-of-Life and taking the ESP8266 off the market. At least people would stop spending good money in a dead product.

I have been amazed at the lack of official discussion on this topic.