Linux prerequisites 🐧

Table of Contents

This guide outlines the preliminary steps to set up your work environment and follow the workshops.

VS Code Installation
#

Go to the VS Code download site
Download and install the Linux version (.deb for Ubuntu)

This guide uses the latest LTS version of Ubuntu, 26.04.

Once the file is downloaded, check the file name (referred to as <file>.deb below)
Open the terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and type:
```
sudo apt install ./<file>.deb
```
After installation, create a folder and try opening VS Code from the terminal:
```
mkdir tmp
cd tmp
code .
```
You should now see the VS Code interface
The first time you open VS Code, you’ll be asked to sign in. Click on Continue without signing in

VS Code may ask whether you trust the author of the folder. This is important when working with git repositories, but for now it doesn’t matter. Click “Yes.”

Installing Prerequisites
#

To install and configure the ESP-IDF toolchain, you need to have Python and git installed.

Python
#

To install the ESP-IDF toolchain, Python version 3.14.4 or higher is required.

To check your Python version:

Open a terminal (CTRL+ALT+T)
Type python3 --version

The result on Ubuntu 24.04 should be:

espressif@Ubuntu24:~$ python3 --version
Python 3.14.4

This satisfies the prerequisite.

If for some reason it doesn’t, you can follow this guide

`git`
#

ESP-IDF development is based on git, the version control tool also used for Linux kernel development. git is the foundation upon which GitHub is built.

To install git:

Open a terminal (CTRL+ALT+T)
Update the repositories:
```
sudo apt-get update
```
Install git:
```
sudo apt-get install git
```

Answer Y when prompted:

   espressif@Ubuntu24:~$ sudo apt-get install git
   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree... Done
   Reading state information... Done
   The following additional packages will be installed:
   git-man liberror-perl
   Suggested packages:
   git-daemon-run | git-daemon-sysvinit git-doc git-email git-gui gitk gitweb
   git-cvs git-mediawiki git-svn
   The following NEW packages will be installed:
   git git-man liberror-perl
   0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 70 not upgraded.
   Need to get 4,806 kB of archives.
   After this operation, 24.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
   Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Verify that git was installed correctly:
```
> git --version
> git version 2.53.0
```

ESP-IDF Prerequisites
#

To use the ESP-IDF toolchain, you need to install some additional tools.

On Ubuntu, you can install them all with the following command:

sudo apt-get install git wget flex bison gperf python3 python3-pip python3-venv cmake ninja-build ccache libffi-dev libssl-dev dfu-util libusb-1.0-0

Next Steps
#

Continue with the next step.

VS Code Installation#

Installing Prerequisites#

Python#

git#

ESP-IDF Prerequisites#

Next Steps#

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