The ESP32-P4 [1] could be interesting for running native Linux [2], but as the article suggests it was supposed to be released in January 2023. We're now approaching January 2026 without a final design [3].
I believe there is a strong market out there for a low-level Linux capable controller with WiFi, Ethernet, USB host, etc, capabilities. The USB itself would be especially killer - imagine being able to just load the appropriate kernel driver for a USB device and being able to communicate with it directly.
For the hobbyist, the best part of the modern embedded chips with few MB of RAM (including ESP32) is that they _don't_ run Linux.
I maintain a few devices at home, both Linux and non-Linux, and the non-Linux are just so much nicer from operation perspective. Everything is described by a few files checked into git, and there is literally no way to sneak any other state in. If the device breaks, or I want another one, or I want to see what changed, it's just a few text files to examine.
Compare it with typical Raspberry Pi, which started with huge microsd image, then there were unknown "apt-get install"'s and some system files modified... Unless you are very, very good with documentation, each one is a special snowflake. The best you can do is to run backup script on them, and restore on rebuild, but it's much worse experience than having a single "pio run -t upload" in the git repo.
(I know there are ways to create immutable Linux system and push it from main PC, just like with microcontrollers - but this is not very well documented path. And much bigger size of the Linux system makes this impractical for rapid iteration)
I think USB device drivers are the _only_ reason to run Linux on the small device. If you don't need those, keep away from Linux. (not that ESP32-P4 would be any good on it - the spec mention "768 KiB SRAM", which is laughably small for Linux. And putting PSRAM on board will make it as expensive as other Linux computers)
bArray•2mo ago
I believe there is a strong market out there for a low-level Linux capable controller with WiFi, Ethernet, USB host, etc, capabilities. The USB itself would be especially killer - imagine being able to just load the appropriate kernel driver for a USB device and being able to communicate with it directly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32#ESP32-P4_-_January_2023
[2] https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=45499
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/esp32/comments/1ilyjpe/when_will_th...
theamk•2mo ago
I maintain a few devices at home, both Linux and non-Linux, and the non-Linux are just so much nicer from operation perspective. Everything is described by a few files checked into git, and there is literally no way to sneak any other state in. If the device breaks, or I want another one, or I want to see what changed, it's just a few text files to examine.
Compare it with typical Raspberry Pi, which started with huge microsd image, then there were unknown "apt-get install"'s and some system files modified... Unless you are very, very good with documentation, each one is a special snowflake. The best you can do is to run backup script on them, and restore on rebuild, but it's much worse experience than having a single "pio run -t upload" in the git repo.
(I know there are ways to create immutable Linux system and push it from main PC, just like with microcontrollers - but this is not very well documented path. And much bigger size of the Linux system makes this impractical for rapid iteration)
I think USB device drivers are the _only_ reason to run Linux on the small device. If you don't need those, keep away from Linux. (not that ESP32-P4 would be any good on it - the spec mention "768 KiB SRAM", which is laughably small for Linux. And putting PSRAM on board will make it as expensive as other Linux computers)