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
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://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
66 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/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>18 November 2001 -- Help us buy busybox.net!</b>
83 <!-- Begin PayPal Logo -->
85 Click here to help buy busybox.net!
86 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
87 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
88 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="andersen@codepoet.org">
89 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Support Busybox/Buy busybox.net">
90 <input type="hidden" name="image_url" value="https://https://busybox.lineo.com/images/busybox2.jpg">
91 <input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1">
92 <input type="image" src="http://images.paypal.com/images/x-click-butcc-donate.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!">
95 <!-- End PayPal Logo -->
97 I've contacted the current owner of busybox.net and he is willing
98 to sell the domain name -- for $250. He also owns busybox.org
99 but will not part with it... I will then need to pay the
100 registry fee, so this will initially cost about $300. I would
101 also like to host busybox.net on my home machine (codepoet.org)
102 so I have full control over the system, but I would need to
103 increase the level of bandwidth I am paying for (there have been
104 over 1 Gigabyte of busybox source downloads for the month of
105 November alone -- other months have had more).
108 I was going to pay it all myself, but my wife didn't like that
109 idea at all (big surprise). It turns out, she has better ideas
110 about what we should spend our money on that don't involve
111 busybox. She suggested I should ask for contributions on the
112 mailing list and web page. So...
115 I am hoping that if everyone could contribute a bit we could pick
116 up the busybox.net domain name, and cover the bandwidth costs. I
117 know that busybox is being used by a lot of companies as well as
118 individuals -- hopefully companies willing to contribute back a
119 bit. So if everyone could please help out, that would be
123 p.s. I plan on updating the Changelog later this evening, and
124 releasing busybox 0.60.2 later tonight. I will probably just merge
125 in vodz' msh since it fixes known problems, and since I haven't had
126 time to make it uClinux safe. Changelog entries for busybox.stable
130 <li> <b>23 August 2001 -- BusyBox 0.60.1 released</b>
133 This is a relatively minor bug fixing release that fixes
134 up the bugs that have shown up in the stable release in
135 the last few weeks. Fortunately, nothing <em>too</em>
136 serious has shown up. This release only fixes bugs -- no
137 new features, no new applets. So without further ado,
138 here it is. Come and get it.
141 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> has all
142 the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.1 can be downloaded from
143 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
148 <li> <b>2 August 2001 -- BusyBox 0.60.0 released</b>
150 I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of
151 BusyBox 0.60.0. I have personally tested this release with libc5, glibc,
152 and <a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a> on
153 x86, ARM, and powerpc using linux 2.2 and 2.4, and I know a number
154 of people using it on everything from ia64 to m68k with great success.
155 Everything seems to be working very nicely now, so getting a nice
156 stable bug-free(tm) release out seems to be in order. This releases fixes
157 a memory leak in syslogd, a number of bugs in the ash and msh shells, and
158 cleans up a number of things.
162 Those wanting an easy way to test the 0.60.0 release with uClibc can
163 use <a href="http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/">User-Mode Linux</a>
164 to give it a try by downloading and compiling
165 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/buildroot.tar.gz">buildroot.tar.gz</a>.
166 You don't have to be root or reboot your machine to run test this way.
167 Preconfigured User-Mode Linux kernel source is also on oss.lineo.com.
169 Another cool thing is the nifty <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/tutorial/index.html">
170 BusyBox Tutorial</a> contributed by K Computing. This requires
171 a ShockWave plugin (or standalone viewer), so you may want to grab the
172 the GPLed shockwave viewer from <a href="http://www.swift-tools.com/Flash/flash-0.4.10.tgz">here</a>
173 to view the tutorial.
176 Finally, In case you didn't notice anything odd about the
177 version number of this release, let me point out that this release
178 is <em>not</em> 0.53, because I bumped the version number up a
179 bit. This reflects the fact that this release is intended to form
180 a new stable BusyBox release series. If you need to rely on a
181 stable version of BusyBox, you should plan on using the stable
182 0.60.x series. If bugs show up then I will release 0.60.1, then
183 0.60.2, etc... This is also intended to deal with the fact that
184 the BusyBox build system will be getting a major overhaul for the
185 next release and I don't want that to break products that people
186 are shipping. To avoid that, the new build system will be
187 released as part of a new BusyBox development series that will
188 have some not-yet-decided-on odd version number. Once things
189 stabilize and the new build system is working for everyone, then
190 I will release that as a new stable release series.
194 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> has all
195 the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.0 can be downloaded from
196 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
201 <li> <b>7 July 2001 -- BusyBox 0.52 released</b>
204 I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of
205 BusyBox 0.52 (the "new-and-improved rock-solid release"). This
206 release is the result of <em>many</em> hours of work and has tons
207 of bugfixes, optimizations, and cleanups. This release adds
208 several new applets, including several new shells (such as hush, msh,
213 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> covers
214 some of the more obvious details, but there are many many things that
215 are not mentioned, but have been improved in subtle ways. As usual,
216 BusyBox 0.52 can be downloaded from
217 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
222 <li> <b>10 April 2001 - Graph of Busybox Growth </b>
224 The illustrious Larry Doolittle has made a PostScript chart of the growth
225 of the Busybox tarball size over time. It is available for downloading /
226 viewing <a href= "busybox-growth.ps"> right here</a>.
228 <p> (Note that while the number of applets in Busybox has increased, you
229 can still configure Busybox to be as small as you want by selectively
230 turning off whichever applets you don't need.)
237 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
241 <!-- Begin Download section -->
243 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
244 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
248 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
251 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
252 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
254 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
255 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
257 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
258 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
260 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
261 for those that are actively contributing there is even
262 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
267 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
269 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
270 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
274 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
275 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
277 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
278 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
279 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
280 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
281 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
282 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
283 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
284 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
285 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
286 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
287 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
288 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
289 a good place to start.
293 <!-- Begin Links section -->
295 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
302 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
306 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
307 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
308 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
309 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
312 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
313 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
315 <li><a href="http://tinylogin.lineo.com/">TinyLogin</a>
316 is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
317 and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
320 <li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
321 is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
322 a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
323 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
324 BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
327 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
333 <!-- Begin Projects section -->
335 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
336 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
337 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
340 <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
342 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
343 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
346 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
347 <li> <a href="http://redhat.com/">Red Hat 7.2 installer</a>
349 href="http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware/source/rootdsks/">Slackware Installer</a>
350 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
351 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
352 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
353 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
354 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
355 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
356 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
357 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
358 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
359 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
360 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
361 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
362 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
363 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
364 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
365 <li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
367 <li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
368 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
369 Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
370 Erik at the top of <a href=
371 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
374 <li> <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">Linux Terminal Server Project</a>
375 <li> <a href="http://www.devil-linux.org/">Devil-Linux</a>
376 <li> <a href="http://dutnux.sourceforge.net/">DutNux</a>
377 <li> <a href="http://www.cachier.com/">Cachier</a>
378 <li> <a href="http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/mindi/">Mindi</a>
382 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
387 <!-- End of Table -->
399 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
400 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
401 <a href="mailto:andersen@codepoet.org">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
402 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
407 <a href="http://www.vim.org"><img border=0 width=90 height=36
408 src="images/written.in.vi.png"
409 alt="This site created with the vi editor"></a>
413 <a href="http://www.gimp.org/"><img border=0 width=90 height=36
414 src="images/gfx_by_gimp.png" alt="Graphics by GIMP"></a>
418 <a href="http://www.linuxtoday.com"><img width=90 height=36
419 src="images/ltbutton2.png" alt="Linux Today"></a>
423 <p><a href="http://slashdot.org"><img width=90 height=36
424 src="images/sdsmall.png" alt="Slashdot"></a>
428 <a href="http://freshmeat.net"><img width=90 height=36
429 src="images/fm.mini.png" alt="Freshmeat"></a>