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Is it possible to run some kind of OS that can run `busybox` on ESP32?
Someone had managed to run Linux on ESP32 in 2021 [0][1]. But that's more of a proof-of-concept rather than a usable thing. Not much information besides that so far I think.

Update:

From the post [0]: someone also managed to run Ubuntu 9.04 on the board in 2020 [2].

[0] https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/07/18/linux-5-0-esp32-proc...

[1] https://www.esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=2681

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/esp32/comments/dtlj7n/booting_linux...

Is that also emulating a small arm core, like the guy who got linux booting on an avr chip?
It's emulating a RISCV machine. IIRC there is an extensa port of Linux.
Interesting... lots of devices (industrial control, PBXs, even smart thermostats, etc.) have debug Tx/Rx pins with no authentication at all.

We have very small ESP32 boards so plug those in, find a power pin (most controllers will have a 5v/3.3v with headroom enough for esp32 to work) and bam, you're in.

Reminds me of the Raspberry Pi in a thermostat episode from Mr. Robot (but that needed a lot more power and was physically larger)

Micropython runs on the esp32. Packs a huge punch imo
Wow, this is great! I needed a device like this last week to connect remotely to an old PBX. Ended up setting up a Debian laptop and SSHing into it, then accessing the serial port using tio. I was thinking about getting some pi-adjacent device if I needed to do this long-term, but an ESP32 would be even better.
Nice for all those vintage Unix boxes that never had ethernet ports, but had bunches of RS-232's...

I wonder if someone already did the opposite and hung one of these tiny things on a classic Mac serial port and used it to ssh into other computers. I know there are a couple of wifi modem emulators using tiny modules like this.

Are there any ready made boards with esp32 and this ENC28J60 ethernet controller? I've used wemos/lolin and nodemcu but never saw an Ethernet option sadly.
Olimex has several excellent ones, at good prices and under open source license.
Perfect, thanks!! Just what I was looking for. The relays on the EVB version are also super handy for my purposes.

And the PoE version is super cool as well despite not having those.