Begin rewriting the book, write some of the earlier chapters

[jessebraham]

I'd like to do a self-review of this as well as it's been awhile since I actually wrote this, so draft for now. But ready for review regardless.

As usual, happy to make any changes, so feel free to leave lots of comments 😁

[jessebraham]

Oh, guess I forgot to update the CI workflow as well 😅

[SergioGasquez]

I think the content of the early chapters is missing unless Im missing something

[jessebraham]

I think the content of the early chapters is missing unless Im missing something

Hmm yeah that was a messy rebase and guess I wasn't paying attention, will try again 😅

[jessebraham]

Had just forgotten to cherry-pick a commit 😅

[SergioGasquez]

Suggested change

	rustup toolchain install stable --target riscv32imc-unknown-none-elf
	rustup toolchain install stable --target riscv32imc-unknown-none-elf --component rust-src

[jessebraham]

Is this actually required? I don't recall ever using --component when installing on my systems, maybe I'm misremembering though.

[SergioGasquez]

You're right, doesn't seem to be required, it's installed by default:

esp@19d485005ff9:~/sandbox/compon$ rustup toolchain install stable --target riscv32imc-unknown-none-elf
info: syncing channel updates for 'stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu'
info: latest update on 2025-12-11, rust version 1.92.0 (ded5c06cf 2025-12-08)
info: downloading component 'rust-std' for 'riscv32imc-unknown-none-elf'
info: downloading component 'rust-src'
info: downloading component 'cargo'
info: downloading component 'clippy'
info: downloading component 'rust-docs'
info: downloading component 'rust-std'
info: downloading component 'rustc'
info: downloading component 'rustfmt'
info: removing previous version of component 'rust-src'
info: removing previous version of component 'cargo'
info: removing previous version of component 'clippy'
info: removing previous version of component 'rust-docs'
info: removing previous version of component 'rust-std'
info: removing previous version of component 'rustc'
info: removing previous version of component 'rustfmt'
info: installing component 'rust-std' for 'riscv32imc-unknown-none-elf'
info: installing component 'rust-src'
info: installing component 'cargo'
info: installing component 'clippy'
info: installing component 'rust-docs'
info: installing component 'rust-std'
 28.0 MiB /  28.0 MiB (100 %)  25.8 MiB/s in  1s         
info: installing component 'rustc'
 74.3 MiB /  74.3 MiB (100 %)  28.0 MiB/s in  2s         
info: installing component 'rustfmt'

  stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu updated - rustc 1.92.0 (ded5c06cf 2025-12-08) (from rustc 1.86.0 (05f9846f8 2025-03-31))

info: checking for self-update
info: downloading self-update

We also have the component required in the rust-toolchain.toml, so if the user doesn't have it, it will be installed when running cargo build/run, same would apply for the target, but I think its worth having the command explicitly before.

[jessebraham]

I updated the book workflow to use a different action to install mdbook and mdbook-mermaid, hopefully haven't messed anything up in the process 😅

[bjoernQ]

Seems this (and the next) chapter partially duplicates a fraction of what is outlined in "The Book" - wouldn't it be better to link to the book instead?
(and tell they should follow the RISC-V route)

[SergioGasquez]

I agree this is a duplicated of the book, but since its only 2 commands (installing the target and installing espflash) that wont change over time, I think its worth to explicitly have them here to make things easier for the user

[MabezDev]

Looks good from my perspective!

[SergioGasquez]

LGTM! Thanks