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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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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>
65 <p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a <a href="screenshot.html">
66 screenshot</a> of BusyBox is now available <a href="screenshot.html"> right
69 <H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
70 BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
71 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
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86 <p> <li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
89 Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller
90 things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell.
91 For a list of the most interesting changes
92 you might want to look at the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
94 Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their
95 work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been
98 <em>Special Note</em><br>
100 BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
101 shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
102 Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
103 shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
104 construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
105 Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
106 progress on <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
107 and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
110 <p> <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
113 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
114 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
115 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
116 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
117 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
118 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
119 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
120 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
122 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
123 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
125 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
126 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
129 <p> <li> <b>Old News</b>
131 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
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145 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
146 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
148 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
149 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
151 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
152 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
154 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
155 for those that are actively contributing there is even
156 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
161 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
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164 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
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169 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
171 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
172 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
173 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
174 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
175 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
176 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
177 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.pdf">BusyBox.pdf</a>.
178 This is basically the same document, but in pdf format.
179 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
180 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
181 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBoxBugs</a>.
182 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
183 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
184 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
185 a good place to start.
189 <!-- Begin Links section -->
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202 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
203 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
204 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
205 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
208 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/04/11/923859921.html">
209 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
212 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
215 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
218 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
224 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
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227 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
228 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
231 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
233 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
234 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
237 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
238 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
239 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
240 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
241 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
242 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
243 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
244 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
245 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
246 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
247 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
248 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
249 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
250 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
251 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
252 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
253 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
256 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
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274 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
275 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
276 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
277 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000, Erik Andersen.
282 <a href="http://www.vim.org"><img border=0 width=88 height=32
283 src="images/anim.written.in.vi.gif"
284 alt="This site created with the vi editor"></a>
288 <a href="http://www.gimp.org/"><img border=0 width=88 height=38
289 src="images/gfx_by_gimp.gif" alt="Graphics by GIMP"></a>
293 <a href="http://www.linuxtoday.com"><img width=90 height=36
294 src="images/ltbutton2.jpg" alt="Linux Today"></a>
298 <p><a href="http://slashdot.org"><img width=90 height=36
299 src="images/sdsmall.gif" alt="Slashdot"></a>
303 <a href="http://freshmeat.net"><img width=90 height=36
304 src="images/fm.mini.jpg" alt="Freshmeat"></a>