Zephyr Project
Zephyr is a realtime operating system that runs on small devices such as ESP32, ESP32-C3, RP2040, nRF52840 and so on.
Some of them work with PlatformIO.
What does it take to add one, I mean, what is PlatformIO really? :-)
Windows
I installed Zephyr on Pearl so that I could work while on vacation later this month. I used a conda environment and so far it seems okay.
Initial set up for Windows
I did set up some tools with chocolatey, I have not documented that here.
conda create --name=zephyrproject python=3.11.5 conda activate zephyrproject cd zephyrproject pip install west mkdir zephyrproject cd zephyrproject west init west update west zephyr-export pip install -r ~/zephyrproject/zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt
Install tool chains
cd ~ wget https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/download/v0.16.4/zephyr-sdk-0.16.4_windows-x86_64.7z 7z x zephyr-sdk-0.16.4_windows-x86_64.7z cd zephyr-sdk-0.16.4 ./setup.cmd
Getting started
https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/develop/getting_started/index.html
Build a binary to blink the dev board's LED.
west build -p always -b <your-board-name> samples/basic/blinky west flash
For example for the m5stickc (they only have the "plus" model listed, see "west boards| grep m5".
west build -p always -b m5stickc_plus samples/basic/blinky
or the nRF52840, use this for the full development kit,
west build -p always -b nrf21540dk_nrf52840 samples/basic/blinky
or this for the dongle version, if this works, the LED will blink in GREEN instead of RED! Imagine the excitement. The pkg command (step 3 here) issues a big warning about the package being unsigned. I think I can live with that.
nrfutil install nrf5sdk-tools # first time only, to install additional tools west build -p always -b nrf52840dongle_nrf52840 samples/basic/blinky nrfutil pkg generate --hw-version 52 --sd-req=0x00 \ --application build/zephyr/zephyr.hex \ --application-version 1 blinky.zip nrfutil dfu usb-serial -pkg blinky.zip -p COM5
