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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 -->
29 <TABLE WIDTH="95%" CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=4 BORDER=1>
30 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
31 <A NAME="intro"> <BIG><B>
32 The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
35 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
37 BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
38 small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
39 you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
40 tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or
41 embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
42 their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
43 the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
45 BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
46 It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
47 features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
48 systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a kernel.
51 BusyBox is maintained by
52 <a href="http://codepoet.org/andersen/erik/erik.html">
53 Erik Andersen</a>, and licensed under the
54 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a>.
60 <p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a screenshot of BusyBox
61 is now available <a href="screenshot.html">right here</a>.
64 <H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
65 BusyBox now has a <a href="http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
66 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
68 <!-- Begin Latest News section -->
70 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
77 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
81 <li> <b>20 November 2001 -- BusyBox 0.60.2 released</b>
84 I am very pleased to announce that the BusyBox 0.60.2 (stable) is now
85 released to the world. This one is primarily a bugfix release for the
86 stable series, and I believe it should take care of most everyone's needs
87 till we can get the nice new stuff we have been working on in CVS ready to
88 release (with the wonderful new buildsystem). The biggest change in this
89 release (beyond bugfixes) is the fact that msh (the minix shell) has been
90 re-worked by Vladimir N. Oleynik (vodz) and so it no longer crashes when
91 told to do complex things with backticks.
94 I've personally tested this release out
95 on x86, ARM, and powerpc using glibc 2.2.4, libc5, and uClibc, so
96 it should work with just about any Linux system you throw it at.
97 See the <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>
98 for <small>most of</small> the details. The last release was
99 <em>very</em> solid for people, and this one should be even better.
101 As usual BusyBox 0.60.2 can be downloaded from
102 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox">ftp://busybox.net/busybox</a>.
104 And please read the news item for the 18th as well. Have Fun.<br> -Erik
107 <li> <b>18 November 2001 -- Help us buy busybox.net!</b>
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123 I've contacted the current owner of busybox.net and he is willing
124 to sell the domain name -- for $250. He also owns busybox.org but
125 will not part with it... I will then need to pay the registry fee
126 for a couple of years and start paying for bandwidth, so this will
127 initially cost about $300. I would like to host busybox.net on my
128 home machine (codepoet.org) so I have full control over the system,
129 but to do that would require that I increase the level of bandwidth
130 I am paying for. Did you know that so far this month, there
131 have been over 1.4 Gigabytes of busybox ftp downloads? I don't
132 even <em>know</em> how much CVS bandwidth it requires. For the
133 time being, Lineo has continued to graciously provide this
134 bandwidth, despite the fact that I no longer work for them. If I
135 start running this all on my home machine, paying for the needed bandwidth
136 will start costing some money.
139 I was going to pay it all myself, but my wife didn't like that
140 idea at all (big surprise). It turns out <insert argument
141 where she wins and I don't> she has better ideas
142 about what we should spend our money on that don't involve
143 busybox. She suggested I should ask for contributions on the
144 mailing list and web page. So...
147 I am hoping that if everyone could contribute a bit, we could pick
148 up the busybox.net domain name and cover the bandwidth costs. I
149 know that busybox is being used by a lot of companies as well as
150 individuals -- hopefully people and companies that are willing to
151 contribute back a bit. So if everyone could please help out, that
156 <li> <b>23 August 2001 -- BusyBox 0.60.1 released</b>
159 This is a relatively minor bug fixing release that fixes
160 up the bugs that have shown up in the stable release in
161 the last few weeks. Fortunately, nothing <em>too</em>
162 serious has shown up. This release only fixes bugs -- no
163 new features, no new applets. So without further ado,
164 here it is. Come and get it.
167 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> has all
168 the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.1 can be downloaded from
169 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox">ftp://busybox.net/busybox</a>.
174 <li> <b>2 August 2001 -- BusyBox 0.60.0 released</b>
176 I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of
177 BusyBox 0.60.0. I have personally tested this release with libc5, glibc,
178 and <a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a> on
179 x86, ARM, and powerpc using linux 2.2 and 2.4, and I know a number
180 of people using it on everything from ia64 to m68k with great success.
181 Everything seems to be working very nicely now, so getting a nice
182 stable bug-free(tm) release out seems to be in order. This releases fixes
183 a memory leak in syslogd, a number of bugs in the ash and msh shells, and
184 cleans up a number of things.
188 Those wanting an easy way to test the 0.60.0 release with uClibc can
189 use <a href="http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/">User-Mode Linux</a>
190 to give it a try by downloading and compiling
191 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/buildroot.tar.gz">buildroot.tar.gz</a>.
192 You don't have to be root or reboot your machine to run test this way.
193 Preconfigured User-Mode Linux kernel source is also on busybox.net.
195 Another cool thing is the nifty <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/tutorial/index.html">
196 BusyBox Tutorial</a> contributed by K Computing. This requires
197 a ShockWave plugin (or standalone viewer), so you may want to grab the
198 the GPLed shockwave viewer from <a href="http://www.swift-tools.com/Flash/flash-0.4.10.tgz">here</a>
199 to view the tutorial.
202 Finally, In case you didn't notice anything odd about the
203 version number of this release, let me point out that this release
204 is <em>not</em> 0.53, because I bumped the version number up a
205 bit. This reflects the fact that this release is intended to form
206 a new stable BusyBox release series. If you need to rely on a
207 stable version of BusyBox, you should plan on using the stable
208 0.60.x series. If bugs show up then I will release 0.60.1, then
209 0.60.2, etc... This is also intended to deal with the fact that
210 the BusyBox build system will be getting a major overhaul for the
211 next release and I don't want that to break products that people
212 are shipping. To avoid that, the new build system will be
213 released as part of a new BusyBox development series that will
214 have some not-yet-decided-on odd version number. Once things
215 stabilize and the new build system is working for everyone, then
216 I will release that as a new stable release series.
220 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> has all
221 the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.0 can be downloaded from
222 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox">ftp://busybox.net/busybox</a>.
227 <li> <b>7 July 2001 -- BusyBox 0.52 released</b>
230 I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of
231 BusyBox 0.52 (the "new-and-improved rock-solid release"). This
232 release is the result of <em>many</em> hours of work and has tons
233 of bugfixes, optimizations, and cleanups. This release adds
234 several new applets, including several new shells (such as hush, msh,
239 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> covers
240 some of the more obvious details, but there are many many things that
241 are not mentioned, but have been improved in subtle ways. As usual,
242 BusyBox 0.52 can be downloaded from
243 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox">ftp://busybox.net/busybox</a>.
248 <li> <b>10 April 2001 - Graph of Busybox Growth </b>
250 The illustrious Larry Doolittle has made a PostScript chart of the growth
251 of the Busybox tarball size over time. It is available for downloading /
252 viewing <a href= "busybox-growth.ps"> right here</a>.
254 <p> (Note that while the number of applets in Busybox has increased, you
255 can still configure Busybox to be as small as you want by selectively
256 turning off whichever applets you don't need.)
263 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.net/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
267 <!-- Begin Download section -->
269 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
270 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
274 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
277 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
278 <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox">ftp://busybox.net/busybox</a>.
280 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
281 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
283 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
284 <a href="http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
286 <a href="http://busybox.net/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
287 for those that are actively contributing there is even
288 <a href="http://busybox.net/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
293 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
295 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
296 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
300 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
301 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
303 <li> <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
304 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
305 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
306 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
307 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
308 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
309 <li> <a href="ftp://busybox.net/busybox/README">README</a>.
310 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
311 <li> <a href="http://bugs.busybox.net/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
312 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
313 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
314 <a href="http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
315 a good place to start.
319 <!-- Begin Links section -->
321 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
328 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
332 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
333 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
334 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
335 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
338 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
339 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
341 <li><a href="http://tinylogin.busybox.net/">TinyLogin</a>
342 is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
343 and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
346 <li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
347 is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
348 a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
349 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
350 BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
353 <li> <a href="http://busybox.net/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
359 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
361 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
362 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
363 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
366 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
368 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
369 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
372 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
373 <li> <a href="http://redhat.com/">Red Hat 7.2 installer</a>
374 <li> <a href="http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware/source/rootdsks/">Slackware Installer</a>
375 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
376 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
377 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
378 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
379 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
380 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
381 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
382 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
383 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
384 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
385 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
386 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
387 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
388 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
389 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
390 <li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
392 <li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
393 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
394 Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
395 Erik at the top of <a href=
396 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
399 <li> <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">Linux Terminal Server Project</a>
400 <li> <a href="http://www.devil-linux.org/">Devil-Linux</a>
401 <li> <a href="http://dutnux.sourceforge.net/">DutNux</a>
402 <li> <a href="http://www.cachier.com/">Cachier</a>
403 <li> <a href="http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/mindi/">Mindi</a>
407 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
412 <!-- End of Table -->
424 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
425 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
426 <a href="mailto:andersen@codepoet.org">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
427 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
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