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18 <B>B u s y B o x</B>
23 <a href="/"><IMG SRC="images/busybox2.jpg" alt="BusyBox" border="0" width="360" height="230"</a><BR>
26 <!-- Begin Introduction section -->
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31 <A NAME="intro"> <BIG><B>
32 The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
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38 BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
39 small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
40 you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
41 tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small
42 or embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
43 their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
44 the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
46 BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
47 It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
48 features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
49 systems. To create a working system, just add a kernel, a shell (such as ash),
50 and an editor (such as elvis-tiny or ae). For a really minimal system, just
51 the the busybox shell (not a POSIX shell, but very small and quite usable).
54 BusyBox is now maintained by
55 <a href="http://codepoet.org/andersen/erik/erik.html">
56 Erik Andersen</a>, and its ongoing development is being sponsored by
57 <a href="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</a>.
59 BusyBox is licensed under the
60 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a>
64 BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
65 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
67 <!-- Begin Latest News section -->
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80 <p> <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
83 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
84 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
85 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
86 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
87 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
88 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
89 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
90 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
92 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
93 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
95 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
96 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
99 <p> <li> <b>26 September 2000 -- BusyBox 0.47 released</b>
102 This release fixes lots of bugs (including an ugly bug in 0.46
103 syslogd that could fork-bomb your system). Added several new
104 apps: rdate, wget, getopt, dos2unix, unix2dos, reset, unrpm,
105 renice, xargs, and expr. syslogd now supports network logging.
106 There are the usual tar updates. Most apps now use getopt for
107 more correct option parsing.
108 See the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>
109 for complete details.
112 <p> <li> <b>Old News</b>
114 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
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127 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
128 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
129 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
130 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
132 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
133 for those that are actively contributing there is even
134 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
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146 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
148 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
149 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
150 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
151 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
152 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
153 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
154 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.pdf">BusyBox.pdf</a>.
155 This is basically the same document, but in pdf format.
156 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
157 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
158 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBoxBugs</a>.
159 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
160 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
161 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
162 a good place to start.
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179 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
180 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
181 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
182 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
185 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/04/11/923859921.html">
186 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
189 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
192 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
195 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
201 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
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204 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
205 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
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210 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
211 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
214 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
215 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
216 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
217 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
218 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
219 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
220 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
221 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
222 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
223 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
224 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
225 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
226 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
227 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
228 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
229 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
230 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
233 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
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251 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
252 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
253 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
254 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000, Erik Andersen.
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