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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>
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31 <A NAME="intro"> <BIG><B>
32 The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
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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, a kernel, and an editor,
49 such as nano, e3, or elvis-tiny. For a really minimal system, you can even use
50 the busybox shell (not Bourne compatible, but very small and quite usable).
53 BusyBox is now maintained by
54 <a href="http://codepoet.org/andersen/erik/erik.html">
55 Erik Andersen</a>, and its ongoing development is being sponsored by
56 <a href="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</a>.
58 BusyBox is licensed under the
59 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a>
64 <p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a <a href="screenshot.html">
65 screenshot</a> of BusyBox is now available <a href="screenshot.html"> right
68 <H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
69 BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
70 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
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85 <li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
88 Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller
89 things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell.
90 For a list of the most interesting changes
91 you might want to look at the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
93 Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their
94 work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been
97 <em>Special Note</em><br>
99 BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
100 shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
101 Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
102 shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
103 construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
104 Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
105 progress on <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
106 and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
109 <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
112 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
113 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
114 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
115 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
116 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
117 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
118 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
119 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
121 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
122 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
124 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
125 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
130 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
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137 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
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144 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
145 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
147 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
148 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
150 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
151 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
153 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
154 for those that are actively contributing there is even
155 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
160 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
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163 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
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168 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
170 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
171 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
172 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
173 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
174 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
175 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
176 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.pdf">BusyBox.pdf</a>.
177 This is basically the same document, but in pdf format.
178 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
179 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
180 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBoxBugs</a>.
181 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
182 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
183 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
184 a good place to start.
188 <!-- Begin Links section -->
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201 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
202 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
203 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
204 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
207 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/04/11/923859921.html">
208 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
211 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
214 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
217 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
223 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
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226 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
227 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
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232 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
233 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
236 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
237 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
238 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
239 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
240 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
241 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
242 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
243 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
244 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
245 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
246 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
247 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
248 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
249 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
250 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
251 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
252 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
255 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
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272 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
273 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
274 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
275 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000, Erik Andersen.
280 <a href="http://www.vim.org"><img border=0 width=88 height=32
281 src="images/anim.written.in.vi.gif"
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292 src="images/ltbutton2.jpg" alt="Linux Today"></a>
296 <p><a href="http://slashdot.org"><img width=90 height=36
297 src="images/sdsmall.gif" alt="Slashdot"></a>
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302 src="images/fm.mini.jpg" alt="Freshmeat"></a>