Troubleshooting

If you have issues with the esp8266 not connecting on /dev/ttyUSB, but the device does show up in lsusb:

$ lsusb
[..]
Bus 001 Device 019: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter
[..]

Then this might be related to a udev rule in Linux. Removing this rule will stop udev from hijacking the USB device.

sudo rm /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/*-brltty-*.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo systemctl mask brltty.path

ESPlorer

ESPlorer is a tool that allows you to flash firmware to the ESP8266 using a GUI. This is example code on how to build and run it:

git clone https://github.com/4refr0nt/ESPlorer.git

# Build it
./mvnw clean package

# Run it
java -jar target/ESPlorer.jar

The ESPlorer can be used to interact with the esp8266 and flash binaries using a GUI.