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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
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, 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>
63 <h3> Busybox Boot-Floppy Image </h3>
65 <p> Because you asked for it, we have made available a <a href=
66 "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img"> Busybox boot floppy
67 image</a>. Here's how you use it:
71 <li> <a href= "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img">
72 Download the image</a>
74 <li> dd it onto a floppy like so: <tt> dd if=busybox.floppy.img
75 of=/dev/fd0 ; sync </tt>
77 <li> Pop it in a machine and boot up.
81 <p> If you want to look at the contents of the initrd image, do this:
85 mount ./busybox.floppy.img /mnt -o loop -t msdos
86 cp /mnt/initrd.gz /tmp
89 mount /tmp/initrd /mnt -o loop -t minix
98 <p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a screenshot of BusyBox
99 is now available <a href="screenshot.html"> right here</a>
102 <H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
103 BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
104 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
106 <!-- Begin Latest News section -->
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119 <li> <b>15 March 2001 -- BusyBox 0.50 released</b>
122 This release adds several new applets including ifconfig, route, pivot_root, stty,
123 and tftp, and also fixes tons of bugs. Tab completion in the
124 shell is now working very well, and the shell's environment variable
125 expansion was fixed. Tons of other things were fixed or made
126 smaller. For a fairly complete overview, see the
127 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
129 lash (the busybox shell) is still with us, fixed up a bit so it
130 now behaves itself quite nicely. It really is quite usable as
131 long as you don't expect it to provide Bourne shell grammer.
132 Standard things like pipes, redirects, command line editing, and
133 environment variable expansion work great. But we have found that
134 this shell, while very usable, does not provide an extensible
135 framework for adding in full Bourne shell behavior. So the first order of
136 business as we begin working on the next BusyBox release will be to merge in the new shell
137 currently in progress at
138 <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry Doolittle's website</a>.
142 <li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
145 Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller
146 things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell.
147 For a list of the most interesting changes
148 you might want to look at the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
150 Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their
151 work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been
154 <em>Special Note</em><br>
156 BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
157 shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
158 Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
159 shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
160 construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
161 Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
162 progress on <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
163 and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
167 <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
170 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
171 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
172 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
173 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
174 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
175 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
176 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
177 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
179 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
180 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
182 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
183 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
189 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
193 <!-- Begin Download section -->
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196 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
200 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
203 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
204 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
206 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
207 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
209 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
210 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
212 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
213 for those that are actively contributing there is even
214 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
219 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
221 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
222 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
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227 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
229 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
230 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
231 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
232 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
233 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
234 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
235 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
236 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
237 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
238 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
239 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
240 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
241 a good place to start.
245 <!-- Begin Links section -->
247 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
254 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
258 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
259 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
260 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
261 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
264 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
265 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
267 <li><a href="http://tinylogin.lineo.com/">TinyLogin</a>
268 is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
269 and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
272 <li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
273 is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
274 a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
275 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
276 BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
279 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
282 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
285 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
291 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
293 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
294 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
295 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
298 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
300 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
301 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
304 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
305 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
306 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
307 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
308 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
309 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
310 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
311 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
312 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
313 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
314 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
315 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
316 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
317 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
318 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
319 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
320 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
321 <li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
323 <li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
324 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
325 Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
326 Erik at the top of <a href=
327 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
332 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
337 <!-- End of Table -->
349 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
350 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
351 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
352 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
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369 src="images/ltbutton2.jpg" alt="Linux Today"></a>
373 <p><a href="http://slashdot.org"><img width=90 height=36
374 src="images/sdsmall.gif" alt="Slashdot"></a>
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379 src="images/fm.mini.jpg" alt="Freshmeat"></a>