[HN Gopher] Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi...
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Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on
ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox
Example repo: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo The
underlying ESP-IDF component:
https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezybox It is something like
Raspberry Pi, but without the overhead of a full server-grade OS.
It captures a lot of the old school DOS era coding experience. I
created a custom fast text mode driver, plan to add VGA-like
graphics next. ANSI text demos run smooth, as you can see in the
demo video featured in the Readme. App installs also work
smoothly. The first time it installed 6 apps from my git repo with
one command, felt like, "OMG, I got homebrew to run on a toaster!"
And best of all, it can install from any repo, no approvals or
waiting, you just publish a compatible ELF file in your release.
Coverage: Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/2026/02/06/breezybox-a-
busybox-like-she... Hackster.io:
https://www.hackster.io/news/valentyn-danylchuk-s-breezybox-...
Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/esp32/comments/1qq503c/i_made_an_in...
Author : isitcontent
Score : 292 points
Date : 2026-02-06 21:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Would it be possible to port it to run on the rp2350?
| isitcontent wrote:
| Some parts of it, very likely. The shell is just linenoise with
| some glue code. How are things with ELF loading on rp2350, I
| did not check. May be possible, the question is, how much
| effort. In ESP-IDF that is a standard component now.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| rp2350 supports freertos, so a similar port should be fairly
| trivial.
|
| The io DMA code is a little special on the Pico. Very capable
| little chip. =3
| its_magic wrote:
| Cool project!
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Doesn't the lack of a flat memory model make a genral os
| difficult? The amiga1000 had far less processing power and about
| the same memory, with no mmu, but that memory model was flat. Did
| you have to do weird things to work around it?
| apitman wrote:
| Can you expound on this problem a bit? I'm still pretty new to
| MCUs.
| isitcontent wrote:
| The memory model is flat enough. The problem with the memory
| is, you only have about 200kB traditional RAM. But then, you
| have 8MB of PSRAM. But it requires strict 4-byte alignment, and
| is noticeably slower.
|
| What makes traditional OSs difficult on this platform, is the
| lack of memory protection. But I am a simple man, I am not
| writing an OS, all I wanted was a usable shell and an apps
| installer, so I made that work.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Just like MS-DOS and CP/M did great with such hardware
| constraints.
|
| I still think many don't understand how much is possible with
| a plain ESP32.
| apitman wrote:
| We should have an argument about how WASM would be the
| perfect app format for this.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Like USCD Pascal P-Code, M-Code, Taos, IBM TIMI, JVM,
| CLR, Parallax Propeller, and many others.
| apitman wrote:
| Things change when the underlying assumptions change. Memory
| protection is mostly useful for multitasking, but traditional
| multitasking isn't always needed when your entire app starts
| faster than Windows can minimize a program.
| numpad0 wrote:
| What makes general OS difficult on a SoC is usually the lack of
| hardware virtual<->real RAM address translation accelerator,
| the MMU.
|
| I guess it's not that important if developers had no raw
| pointer access so that object can be anywhere dynamically
| assigned(Java!!! also JavaScript and all interpreted langs).
| But basically all desktop OS apps are written in C and they
| always want single consistent virtual addresses to jump around
| in and none of apps work without the hardware dynamic
| translation.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| C semantics account for segmented storage, that is why two
| pointers holding the same bitwise address are not considered
| to point to the same object, when they are derived
| differently.
| vegadw wrote:
| Being instant-on is so, so cool. I really like seeing projects
| like this and Adafruit's Fruit Jam as they really show "Yeah, by
| having all this junk in the way, we do lose some things"
|
| Absolutely would give something like this to a kid as a first
| computer.
| isitcontent wrote:
| I am looking forward to $20 laptops on aliexpress running this
| thing!
| apitman wrote:
| Hey you're the xcc700 guy! Very cool stuff. I've been interested
| lately in using MCUs for general purpose compute. I wonder how
| far you could push it.
| isitcontent wrote:
| Right, people were asking about the shell used in the xcc700
| demo, so that is released now too, and I tried to make it
| convenient to reuse as a component.
|
| Esp32-s3 can do so much more, we are just scratching the
| surface. You might remember FabGL, that ran some nice demos in
| the realm of games and DOS emulation. Unfortunately, seems to
| be hard to update for modern versions of ESP-IDF. I am trying
| to build something more modular, with hope that some parts of
| it will survive longer.
|
| I think someone also ran an old version of MacOS simulated on
| it, too, that is also an indication of the general capability.
| awjlogan wrote:
| https://github.com/evansm7/pico-mac
|
| Mac on the RP2040.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Well, I know what I'm doing next weekend.. I was already gonna
| pick up an esp32-s3 for another project, now I need two...
| frogperson wrote:
| They are really cheap, get an esp32-c6 while you are at it.
|
| https://www.espboards.dev/blog/esp32-soc-options/
| apitman wrote:
| I'm loving my C6, and the P4s look like an absolute beast.
| I'm not ready for that kind of firepower yet.
| solarkraft wrote:
| This is my introduction to Breezybox and THAT I am really excited
| about. I hate that for some reason I have to care about Wifi
| configuration and updates, I just want to write my application. I
| never understood why we don't have simple microcontroller OSes
| that care about that stuff for us.
|
| This looks like a great basis (or maybe even all that's needed)
| for one.
|
| Does it have a good setup flow for headless deployment (e.g.
| supply Wifi config while flashing, remote shell access/web UI for
| deploying apps)?
| isitcontent wrote:
| BreezyBox is at an early development stage. What you see in the
| demo is mostly all there is so far. There is no telling if it
| will catch on, with more developers adding apps and features.
|
| Some sort of web access for remote config should be possible,
| if anyone cares to implement that. The web server is already
| there; getting it to run some server side code may take extra
| effort.
| sixtyj wrote:
| I visited ESPboards.dev website and S3 version is "Best for
| AI & Machine Learning Applications - Hardware-accelerated
| neural network processing".
|
| Deep rabbit hole...
|
| Thanks.
| inflam52 wrote:
| Very cool! We need to get this on M5Stack Cardputer ASAP
| ssiddharth wrote:
| Bit of a noob question: is this limited to the S3 or can I try
| running it on a C3 too?
| isitcontent wrote:
| It should be possible to get most of it compiled for C3, C6, or
| P4. But xcc700 is specific to the Xtensa CPU, so that would be
| a bigger effort. And the ELF binaries you install with eget
| would need to be recompiled (with existing gcc) and published
| for RISC-V. When it gets to that, we should make some minimal
| manifest support to eget and the release conventions, to
| distinguish between ELF files for different platforms. Also
| keep in mind how much PSRAM is available, if any.
| apitman wrote:
| Are you interested in having xcc700 ported to RISC-V, or want
| to keep it focused on Xtensa? I have a dream of building a
| simple C89 compiler that targets RISC-V and Wasm and runs on
| esp32-c6 someday.
| isitcontent wrote:
| I would like to explore the RISC-V systems more as well
| eventually, but for the nearest future I will probably
| stick with one platform, try to get my actual device to do
| more of the fun things I like.
| nabilt wrote:
| Very cool project. Congrats. I will be trying this out.
|
| Two other project I saw that are somewhat related for those
| interested:
|
| 1. reddit community (r/xteinkereader) building an OS like ebook
| reader app for a small chinese ereader based on esp32-s3
|
| 2. Linux port for the esp32-s3. Interestingly, the S3 has an MMU
| but I don't think it was used in this project.
|
| https://github.com/ESP32DE/Boot-Linux-ESP32S3-Playground?tab...
| dj0k3r wrote:
| The value for money is crazy on these boards, in my opinion. I'm
| planning on using these as a cheap replacement to a KVM. Flashing
| esp bus pirate (https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bus-Pirate) and
| leaving it connected to whatever device I want to control (
| remotely in my case), is quite handy. The power draw is
| negligible so I just leave it always on connected to my wifi.
| kdmtctl wrote:
| How do you manage display sharing using it? Another device? I
| have a bunch of refurb servers, which I'd like to keep access
| to not waiting for an engineer to visit it. The budget is tight
| so proper KVM is not an option.
| tosti wrote:
| Sorry to noob here but is this free of blobs?
|
| When I tried an ESP a few years ago, running it involved
| binaries.
| quietsegfault wrote:
| This seems like magic. I know it's not, but it goes against
| everything I knew about ESP! Nice work.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Would love this with Zig installed
| apitman wrote:
| Obviously the dependencies are way too heavy currently, but I
| do wonder long term if we'll have simple, highly portable zig
| compilers.
| Western0 wrote:
| ok, I can run fuzix, why using this?
| isitcontent wrote:
| Mostly if you like the usual ESP-IDF setup and ecosystem.
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(page generated 2026-02-07 23:01 UTC)