Having bought a bunch of the materials I need to make my dumb wearable project and told the internet about it I now have no excuse to get started. I think the project can be reasonably broken down into 3 components; the twitter account that people can interact with, a server that exposes an API for my jacket to consume and the jacket itself.

An idea has been floating around in the back of my mind for a few months now. I want to build a coat that connects to the internet. This is what motivated me to figure out how to use micropython on an internet enabled microprocessor like the esp32. The internet of things gets a bad rap but being a massive nerd who loves William Gibson novels means I dig the idea of connecting pointless things to CYBERSPACE so long as it’s the bit of CYBERspace I control. So I’ve embarked on making a stupid leather jacket with lots of shiny LED’s stapled to it.

I’ve had a couple of ESP32 dev boards knocking around for years now but thought I’d pick one up in lockdown as a fun little project to see if I can make something cool ahead of COVID permitting EMF in 2021. This afternoon I sat down to install Micropython on the board . This isn’t the first time I’ve done this and probably won’t be the last so I thought I’d write up how to do it.

I’ve been a Linux user on and off for over a decade now, sometimes I even get paid to use it. If you’ve never used Linux the terminology around it can be quite confusing, Linux isn’t an operating system like Windows or MacOS but can be better thought of as a platform for building operating systems. In Linux land (population nerds) these operating systems are called distributions and the differences between them can make a huge difference to the way you use your computer. I’ve been a long term user of the Ubuntu distribution only recently switching to Fedora because of its relationship with Red Hat.

Both Fedora and Ubuntu are designed to be easy to use and largely get out of the way of the user. Arch is not designed to do that, it is for the hardcore. Arch's software is bleeding edge, you will get the latest Linux Kernel whether it works or not. And most of all it is known to be an unbelievable pain to install.