1 Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.
3 BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
4 small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
5 you usually find in GNU coreutils, util-linux, etc. The utilities in BusyBox
6 generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the
7 options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very
8 much like their GNU counterparts.
10 BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
11 It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
12 features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
13 systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a Linux kernel.
14 BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or embedded
17 BusyBox is extremely configurable. This allows you to include only the
18 components you need, thereby reducing binary size. Run 'make config' or
19 'make menuconfig' to select the functionality that you wish to enable.
21 After the build is complete, a busybox.links file is generated. This is
22 used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the BusyBox binary for all
23 compiled in functions. By default, 'make install' will place the symlink
24 forest into `pwd`/_install unless you have defined the PREFIX environment
25 variable (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install')
27 If you wish to install hard links, rather than symlinks, you can use
28 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install-hardlinks' instead.
32 Supported architectures:
34 BusyBox in general will build on any architecture supported by gcc. It has
35 a few specialized features added for __sparc__ and __alpha__. insmod
36 functionality is currently limited to ARM, CRIS, H8/300, x86, ia64,
37 x86_64, m68k, MIPS, PowerPC, S390, SH3/4/5, Sparc, v850e, and x86_64
38 for 2.4.x kernels. For 2.6.x kernels
40 Supported C Libraries:
42 uClibc and glibc are supported. People have been looking at newlib and
43 diet-libc, but they are currently considered unsupported, untested, or
44 worse. Linux-libc5 is no longer supported -- you should probably use uClibc
45 instead if you want a small C library.
49 Full functionality requires Linux 2.2.x or better. A large fraction of the
50 code should run on just about anything. While the current code is fairly
51 Linux specific, it should be fairly easy to port the majority of the code
52 to support, say, FreeBSD or Solaris, or Mac OS X, or even Windows (if you
53 are into that sort of thing).
59 When you find you need help, you can check out the BusyBox mailing list
60 archives at http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/ or even join
61 the mailing list if you are interested.
67 If you find bugs, please submit a detailed bug report to the BusyBox mailing
68 list at busybox@mail.busybox.net. A well-written bug report should include a
69 transcript of a shell session that demonstrates the bad behavior and enables
70 anyone else to duplicate the bug on their own machine. The following is such
73 To: busybox@mail.busybox.net
74 From: diligent@testing.linux.org
75 Subject: /bin/date doesn't work
80 When I execute BusyBox 'date' it produces unexpected results.
81 With GNU date I get the following output:
84 Sat Mar 27 14:19:41 MST 2004
86 But when I use BusyBox date I get this instead:
91 I am using Debian unstable, kernel version 2.4.25-vrs2 on a Netwinder,
92 and the latest uClibc from CVS. Thanks for the wonderful program!
96 Note the careful description and use of examples showing not only what BusyBox
97 does, but also a counter example showing what an equivalent GNU app does. Bug
98 reports lacking such detail may never be fixed... Thanks for understanding.
104 Source for the latest released version, as well as daily snapshots, can always
106 http://busybox.net/downloads/
112 BusyBox now has its own publicly browsable CVS tree at:
113 http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/
115 Anonymous CVS access is available. For instructions, check out:
116 http://busybox.net/cvs_anon.html
118 For those that are actively contributing there is even CVS write access:
119 http://busybox.net/cvs_write.html
123 Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
125 <andersen@codepoet.org>