FireBeetle-ESP32 and mklittlefs parameters

Question

I'm using a DFRobot FireBeetle-ESP32 with spiffs and I downloaded the esp32 boards file looking for the spiffs parameters block size, page size, spiffs start and spiffs end as I'm following this tutorial but for the ESP32, i.e.

mklittlefs --size <image size> --page <page size> --block <block size> -d 5 --create ./data spiffs.bin

The ESP32 boards file doesn't contain that information. Is there anywhere it's available in order to use mkspiffs? Or are there reasonable defaults for the FireBeetle-ESP32?

Answer 1

I managed to get the parameters by installing the arduino-esp32fs-plugin.

First need to find where to put the plugin. This is on a Raspberry Pi 4.

Arduino IDE -> File -> Preferences -> Sketchbook location

which is /home/pi/Arduino

Download the plugin and put it in:

/home/pi/Arduino/tools/ESP32FS/tool/esp32fs.jar

restart the Arduino IDE, load the LITTLEFS_test example and save it to a suitable location, e.g.:

/home/pi/dev/esp32/LITTLEFS_test/LITTLEFS_test.ino
/home/pi/dev/esp32/LITTLEFS_test/partitions.csv

then create a data directory and file with some content in the sketch directory:

/home/pi/dev/esp32/LITTLEFS_test/data/test.txt

then in the Arduino IDE:

Tools -> ESP32 Sketch Data Upload

choose LittleFS and OK.

The required data is then in the output window of the Arduino IDE:

[LittleFS] data   : /home/pi/dev/esp32/LittleFS_test/data
[LittleFS] offset : 0
[LittleFS] start  : 2162688
[LittleFS] size   : 1856
[LittleFS] page   : 256
[LittleFS] block  : 4096

I added some debug output to the plugin, compiled it and put it in the Arduino IDE to come up with a commandline version. Note that the size parameter in the Arduino IDE output window is divided by 1024, so need to multiply it by 1024 for the commandline version:

 /home/pi/.arduino15/packages/esp8266/tools/mklittlefs/3.0.4-gcc10.3-1757bed/mklittlefs -c ./data2 -p 256 -b 4096 -s 1507328 spiffs.bin

installing esptool:

pip install esptool

and adding more debug output to the plugin gave me the commandline for uploading the littlefs image:

python -m esptool --chip esp32 --baud 921600 --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --before default_reset --after hard_reset write_flash -z --flash_mode dio --flash_freq 80m --flash_size detect 2686976 spiffs.bin