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5 <li><b>23 March, 2007 -- BusyBox 1.5.0 (unstable)</b>
6 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.5.0.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.5.0</a>.
8 <p>Since this is a x.x.0 release, it probably does not deserve "stable"
9 label. Please help making 1.5.1 stable by testing 1.5.0.</p>
10 <p>Notable changes since previous release:
12 <li>find: added support for -user, -not, fixed -mtime, -mmin, -perm
13 <li>[de]archivers: merge common logic into one module
14 <li>ping[6]: unified code for both
15 <li>less: regex search improved
16 <li>ash: more readable code, testsuite added
17 <li>sed: several very obscure bugs fixed
18 <li>chown: -H, -L, -P support (required by POSIX)
19 <li>tar: handle (broken) checksums a-la Sun; tar restores mode again
20 <li>grep: implement -w, "implement" -a and -I by ignoring them
21 <li>cp: more sane behavior when overwriting existing files
22 <li>init: stop doing silly things with the console (-400 bytes)
23 <li>httpd: make httpd usable for NOMMU CPUs; fix POSTDATA handling bugs
24 <li>httpd: run interpreter for configured file extensions in any dir,
27 <li>SELinux: SELinux-related code and -Z option added to several applets,
28 new SELinux-specific applets: chcon, runcon.
29 <li>Build system: produces link map, uses -Wwrite-strings to catch
30 improper usage of string constants.
31 <li>Data and bss section usage audited and reduced - should help NOMMU
33 <li>Applets with bug fixes: gunzip, vi, syslogd, dpkg, ls, adjtimex, resize,
34 sv, printf, diff, awk, sort, dpkg, diff, tftp
35 <li>Applets with usability improvements: swapon, more, ifup/ifdown, hwclock,
36 udhcpd, start_stop_daemon, cmp
37 <li>Applets with code cleaned up: telnet, fdisk, fsck_minix, mkfs_minix,
38 syslogd, swapon, runsv, svlogd, klogd
43 <li><b>18 March, 2007 -- BusyBox 1.4.2 (stable)</b>
44 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.4.2.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.4.2</a>.
47 <p>This release includes only trivial fixes accumulated since 1.4.1.
51 <li><b>25 January, 2007 -- BusyBox 1.4.1 (stable)</b>
52 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.4.1.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.4.1</a>.
53 (<a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/fixes-1.4.1/>patches</a>)</p>
55 <p>This release includes only trivial fixes accumulated since 1.4.0.
59 <li><b>20 January, 2007 -- BusyBox 1.4.0 (stable)</b>
60 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.4.0.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.4.0</a>.
61 (<a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/fixes-1.4.0/>patches</a>)</p>
63 <p>Since this is a x.x.0 release, it probably is a bit less "stable"
65 <p>Changes since previous release:
67 <li>e2fsprogs are mostly removed from busybox. Some smaller parts remain,
68 the rest of it sits disabled in e2fsprogs/old_e2fsprogs/*, because
69 it's too bloated. Really. I'm afraid it's about the only way we can
70 ever get e2fsprogs cleaned up.
71 <li>less: many improvements. Now can display binary files
72 (although I expect it to have trouble with displays where 8bit chars
73 don't have 1-to-1 char/glyph relationship). Regexp search is not buggy
74 anymore. Less does not read entire input up-front. Reads input
75 as it appears (yay!). Works rather nice as man pager. I recommend it
77 <li>IPv6: generic support is in place, many networking applets are
78 upgraded to be IPv6 capable. Probably some work remains, but it is
79 already much better than what we had previously.
80 <li>arp: new applet (thanks to Eric Spakman).
81 <li>fakeidentd: non-forking standalone server part was taking ~90%
82 of the applet. Factored it out (in fact, rewrote it).
83 <li>syslogd: mostly rewritten.
84 <li>decompress_unzip, gzip: sanitized a bit.
85 <li>sed: better hadling of NULs
86 <li>httpd: stop adding our own "Content-type:" to CGI output
87 <li>chown: user.grp works again.
88 <li>minor bugfixes to: passwd, date, tftp, start_stop_daemon, tar,
89 ps, ifupdown, time, su, stty, awk, ping[6], sort,...
94 <li><b>20 January, 2007 -- BusyBox 1.3.2 (stable)</b>
95 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.3.2.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.3.2</a>.</p>
97 <p>This release includes only one trivial fix accumulated since 1.3.1
101 <li><b>27 December, 2006 -- BusyBox 1.3.1 (stable)</b>
102 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.3.1.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.3.1</a>.
103 (<a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/fixes-1.3.1/>patches</a>)</p>
105 <p>Closing 2006 with new release. It includes only trivial fixes accumulated since 1.3.0
109 <li><b>14 December, 2006 -- BusyBox 1.3.0 (stable)</b>
110 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.3.0.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.3.0</a>.
111 (<a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/fixes-1.3.0/>patches</a>)</p>
113 <p>This release has CONFIG_DESKTOP option which enables features
114 needed for busybox usage on desktop machine. For example, find, chmod
115 and chown get several less frequently used options, od is significantly
116 bigger but matches GNU coreutils, etc. Intended to eventually make
117 busybox a viable alternative for "standard" utilities for slightly
118 adventurous desktop users.
119 <p>Changes since previous release:
121 <li>find: taking many more of standard options
122 <li>ps: POSIX-compliant -o implemented
124 <li>grep: added -r, fixed -h
125 <li>watch: make it exec child like standard one does (was totally
127 <li>tar: fix limitations which were preventing bbox tar usage
128 on big directories: long names and linknames, pax headers
129 (Linux kernel tarballs have that). Fixed a number of obscure bugs.
130 Raised max file limit (now 64Gb). Security fixes (/../ attacks).
131 <li>httpd: added -i (inetd), -f (foreground), support for
132 directory indexer CGI (example is included), bugfixes.
133 <li>telnetd: fixed/improved IPv6 support, inetd+standalone support,
134 other fixes. Useful IPv6 stuff factored out into libbb.
135 <li>runit/*: new applets adapted from http://smarden.sunsite.dk/runit/
136 (these are my personal favorite small-and-beautiful toys)
137 <li>minor bugfixes to: login, dd, mount, umount, chmod, chown, ln, udhcp,
138 fdisk, ifconfig, sort, tee, mkswap, wget, insmod.
140 <p>Note that GnuPG key used to sign this release is different.
141 1.2.2.1 is also signed post-factum now. Sorry for the mess.
145 <li><b>29 October, 2006 -- BusyBox 1.2.2.1 (fix)</b>
146 <p><a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.2.2.1.tar.bz2>BusyBox 1.2.2.1</a>.</p>
148 <p>Added compile-time warning that static linking against glibc
149 produces buggy executables.
152 <li><b>24 October, 2006 -- BusyBox 1.2.2 (stable)</b>
153 <p>It's a bit overdue, but
154 <a href=http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.2.2.tar.bz2>here is
155 BusyBox 1.2.2</a>.</p>
157 <p>This release has dozens of fixes backported from the ongoing development
158 branch. There are a couple of bugfixes to sed, two fixes to documentation
159 generation (BusyBox.html shouldn't have USE() macros in it anymore), fix
160 umount to report the right errno on failure and to umount block devices by
161 name with newer kernels, fix mount to handle symlinks properly, make mdev
162 delete device nodes when called for hotplug remove, fix a segfault
163 in traceroute, a minor portability fix to md5sum option parsing, a build
164 fix for httpd with old gccs, an options parsing tweak to hdparm, make test
165 fail gracefully when getgroups() returns -1, fix a race condition in
166 modprobe when two instances run at once (hotplug does this), make "tar xf
167 foo.tar dir/dir" extract all subdirectories, make our getty initialize the
168 terminal more like mingetty, an selinux build fix, an endianness fix in
169 ping6, fix for zcip defending addresses, clean up some global variables in
170 gzip to save memory, fix sulogin -tNNN, a help text tweak, several warning
171 fixes and build fixes, fixup dnsd a bit, and a partridge in a pear tree.</p>
173 <p>As <a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/202106/>Linux Weekly News noted</a>,
174 this is my (Rob's) last release of BusyBox. The new maintainer is Denis
175 Vlasenko, I'm off to do <a href=http://landley.net/code>other things</a>.
179 <li><b>29 September, 2006 -- New license email address.</b>
180 <p>The email address gpl@busybox.net is now the recommended way to contact
181 the Software Freedom Law Center to report BusyBox license violations.</p>
183 <li><b>31 July 2006 -- BusyBox 1.2.1 (stable)</b>
184 <p>Since nobody seems to have objected too loudly over the weekend, I
185 might as well point you all at
186 <a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.2.1.tar.bz2">Busybox
187 1.2.1</a>, a bugfix-only release with no new features.</p>
189 <p>It has three shell fixes (two to lash: going "var=value" without
190 saying "export" should now work, plus a missing null pointer check, and
191 one to ash when redirecting output to a file that fills up.) Fix three
192 embarassing thinkos in the new dmesg command. Two build tweaks
193 (dependencies for the compressed usage messages and running make in the
194 libbb subdirectory). One fix to tar so it can extract git-generated
195 tarballs (rather than barfing on the pax extensions). And a partridge
196 in a pear... Ahem.</p>
198 <p>But wait, there's more! A passwd changing fix so an empty
199 gecos field doesn't trigger a false objection that the new passwd contains
200 the gecos field. Make all our setuid() and setgid() calls check the return
201 value in case somebody's using per-process resource limits that prevent
202 a user from having too many processes (and thus prevent a process from
203 switching away from root, in which case the process will now _die_ rather
204 than continue with root privileges). A fix to adduser to make sure that
205 /etc/group gets updated. And a fix to modprobe to look for modules.conf
206 in the right place on 2.6 kernels.</p>
208 <li><b>30 June 2006 -- BusyBox 1.2.0</b>
209 <p>The -devel branch has been stabilized and the result is
210 <a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.2.0.tar.bz2">Busybox
211 1.2.0</a>. Lots of stuff changed, I need to work up a decent changelog
212 over the weekend.</p>
214 <p>I'm still experimenting with how long is best for the development
215 cycle, and since we've got some largeish projects queued up I'm going to
216 try a longer one. Expect 1.3.0 in December. (Expect 1.2.1 any time
217 we fix enough bugs. :)</p>
219 <p>Update: Here are <a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.2.0.fixes.patch">the first few bug fixes</a> that will go into 1.2.1.</p>
221 <li><b>17 May 2006 -- BusyBox 1.1.3 (stable)</b>
222 <p><a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.1.3.tar.bz2">BusyBox
223 1.1.3</a> is another bugfix release. It makes passwd use salt, fixes a
224 memory freeing bug in ls, fixes "build all sources at once" mode, makes
225 mount -a not abort on the first failure, fixes msh so ctrl-c doesn't kill
226 background processes, makes patch work with patch hunks that don't have a
227 timestamp, make less's text search a lot more robust (the old one could
228 segfault), and fixes readlink -f when built against uClibc.</p>
230 <p>Expect 1.2.0 sometime next month, which won't be a bugfix release.</p>
232 <li><b>10 April 2006 -- BusyBox 1.1.2 (stable)</b>
233 <p>You can now download <a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.1.2.tar.bz2">BusyBox 1.1.2</a>, a bug fix release consisting of 11 patches
234 backported from the development branch: Some build fixes, several fixes
235 for mount and nfsmount, a fix for insmod on big endian systems, a fix for
236 find -xdev, and a fix for comm. Check the file "changelog" in the tarball
239 <p>The next new development release (1.2.0) is slated for June. A 1.1.3
240 will be released before then if more bug fixes crop up. (The new plan is
241 to have a 1.x.0 new development release every 3 months, with 1.x.y stable
242 bugfix only releases based on that as appropriate.)</p>
244 <li><b>27 March 2006 -- Software Freedom Law Center representing BusyBox and uClibc</b>
245 <p>One issue Erik Andersen wanted to resolve when handing off BusyBox
246 maintainership to Rob Landley was license enforcement. BusyBox and
247 uClibc's existing license enforcement efforts (pro-bono representation
248 by Erik's father's law firm, and the
249 <a href="http://www.busybox.net/shame.html">Hall of Shame</a>), haven't
250 scaled to match the popularity of the projects. So we put our heads
251 together and did the obvious thing: ask Pamela Jones of
252 <a href="http://www.groklaw.net">Groklaw</a> for suggestions. She
253 referred us to the fine folks at softwarefreedom.org.</p>
255 <p>As a result, we're pleased to announce that the
256 <a href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org">Software Freedom Law Center</a>
257 has agreed to represent BusyBox and uClibc. We join a number of other
258 free and open source software projects (such as
259 <a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/141806/">X.org</a>,
260 <a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/135413/">Wine</a>, and
261 <a href="http://plone.org/foundation/newsitems/software-freedom-law-center-support/">Plone</a>
262 in being represented by a fairly cool bunch of lawyers, which is not a
263 phrase you get to use every day.</p>
265 <li><b>22 March 2006 -- BusyBox 1.1.1</b>
266 <p>The new maintainer is Rob Landley, and the new release is <a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.1.1.tar.bz2">BusyBox 1.1.1</a>. Expect a "what's new" document in a few days. (Also, Erik and I have have another announcement pending...)</p>
267 <p>Update: Rather than put out an endless stream of 1.1.1.x releases,
268 the various small fixes have been collected together into a
269 <a href="http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.1.1.fixes.patch">patch</a>,
270 and new fixes will be appended to that as needed. Expect 1.1.2 around
273 <li><b>11 January 2006 -- 1.1.0 is out</b>
274 <p>The new stable release is
275 <a href="http://www.busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.1.0.tar.bz2">BusyBox
276 1.1.0</a>. It has a number of improvements, including several new applets.
277 (It also has <a href="http://www.busybox.net/lists/busybox/2006-January/017733.html">a few rough spots</a>,
278 but we're trying out a "release early, release often" strategy to see how
279 that works. Expect 1.1.1 sometime in March.)</p>
281 <li><b>Old News</b><p>
282 <a href="/oldnews.html">Click here to read older news</a>
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