1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
8 <body text="#000000" alink="#660000" link="#660000" bgcolor="#dee2de" vlink="#660000">
10 <basefont face="lucida, helvetica, arial" size="3">
14 <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=2>
16 <td bgcolor="#000000">
17 <FONT FACE="lucida, helvetica" COLOR="#ccccc0">
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
36 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
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 or
42 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 /dev, a kernel, and an editor,
50 such as nano, e3, or elvis-tiny. For a really minimal system, you can even use
51 the busybox shell (not Bourne compatible, 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>
63 <H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
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 -->
69 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
76 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
80 <p> <li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
83 Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller
84 things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell.
85 For a list of the most interesting changes
86 you might want to look at the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
88 Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their
89 work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been
92 <em>Special Note</em><br>
94 BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
95 shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
96 Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
97 shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
98 construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
99 Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
100 progress on <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
101 and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
104 <p> <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
107 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
108 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
109 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
110 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
111 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
112 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
113 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
114 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
116 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
117 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
119 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
120 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
123 <p> <li> <b>Old News</b>
125 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
129 <!-- Begin Download section -->
131 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
132 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
136 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
139 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
140 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
142 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
143 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
145 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
146 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
148 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
149 for those that are actively contributing there is even
150 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
155 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
157 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
158 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
162 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
163 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
165 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
166 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
167 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
168 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
169 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
170 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
171 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.pdf">BusyBox.pdf</a>.
172 This is basically the same document, but in pdf format.
173 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
174 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
175 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBoxBugs</a>.
176 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
177 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
178 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
179 a good place to start.
183 <!-- Begin Links section -->
185 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
192 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
196 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
197 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
198 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
199 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
202 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/04/11/923859921.html">
203 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
206 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
209 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
212 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
218 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
220 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
221 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
222 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
225 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
227 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
228 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
231 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
232 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
233 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
234 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
235 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
236 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
237 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
238 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
239 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
240 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
241 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
242 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
243 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
244 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
245 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
246 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
247 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
250 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
255 <!-- End of Table -->
268 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
269 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
270 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
271 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000, Erik Andersen.
276 <a href="http://www.vim.org"><img border=0 width=88 height=32
277 src="images/anim.written.in.vi.gif"
278 alt="This site created with the vi editor"></a>
282 <a href="http://www.gimp.org/"><img border=0 width=88 height=38
283 src="images/gfx_by_gimp.gif" alt="Graphics by GIMP"></a>
287 <a href="http://www.linuxtoday.com"><img width=90 height=36
288 src="images/ltbutton2.jpg" alt="Linux Today"></a>
292 <p><a href="http://slashdot.org"><img width=90 height=36
293 src="images/sdsmall.gif" alt="Slashdot"></a>
297 <a href="http://freshmeat.net"><img width=90 height=36
298 src="images/fm.mini.jpg" alt="Freshmeat"></a>