-Please see the LICENSE file for copyright information.
-
+Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.
+
BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
-you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
-tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or
-embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
-their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
-the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
+you usually find in GNU coreutils, util-linux, etc. The utilities in BusyBox
+generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the
+options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very
+much like their GNU counterparts.
BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
-systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, a shell, and a kernel. For
-a really minimal system, you can even use the busybox shell (not Bourne
-compatible, but very small and quite usable) and the busybox vi editor.
-
-BusyBox was originally written to support the Debian Rescue/Install disks, but
-it also makes an excellent environment for any small or embedded system.
+systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a Linux kernel.
+BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or embedded
+system.
-As of version 0.20 there is now a version number. : ) Also as of version 0.20,
-BusyBox is now modularized to easily allow you to build only the components you
-need, thereby reducing binary size. To turn off unwanted BusyBox components,
-simply edit the file "Config.h" and comment out the components you do not need
-using C++ style (//) comments.
+BusyBox is extremely configurable. This allows you to include only the
+components you need, thereby reducing binary size. Run 'make config' or
+'make menuconfig' to select the functionality that you wish to enable.
After the build is complete, a busybox.links file is generated. This is
-used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the busybox binary for all
+used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the BusyBox binary for all
compiled in functions. By default, 'make install' will place the symlink
forest into `pwd`/_install unless you have defined the PREFIX environment
variable (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install')
+If you wish to install hard links, rather than symlinks, you can use
+'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install-hardlinks' instead.
+
----------------
-
-Supported architectures:
- Busybox in general will build on any architecture supported by gcc. It has
- a few specialized features added for __sparc__ and __alpha__. insmod
- functionality is currently limited to x86, ARM, SH3/4, powerpc, m68k,
- and MIPS.
+Supported architectures:
-Supported libcs:
+ BusyBox in general will build on any architecture supported by gcc.
+ Kernel module loading for 2.2 and 2.4 Linux kernels is currently
+ limited to ARM, CRIS, H8/300, x86, ia64, x86_64, m68k, MIPS, PowerPC,
+ S390, SH3/4/5, Sparc, v850e, and x86_64 for 2.4.x kernels. For 2.6.x
+ kernels, kernel module loading support should work on all architectures.
- glibc-2.0.x, glibc-2.1.x, Linux-libc5, uClibc. People are looking at
- newlib and diet-libc, but consider them unsupported, untested, or worse.
-Supported kernels:
+Supported C Libraries:
- Full functionality requires Linux 2.0.x, 2.2.x, or 2.4.x. A large fraction
- of the code should run on just about anything.
+ uClibc and glibc are supported. People have been looking at newlib and
+ dietlibc, but they are currently considered unsupported, untested, or
+ worse. Linux-libc5 is no longer supported -- you should probably use uClibc
+ instead if you want a small C library.
-----------------
+Supported kernels:
-Shells:
-
-lash is the very smallest shell (adds just 10k) and it is quite usable as
-a command prompt, but it is not suitable for any but the most trivial
-scripting (such as an initrd that calls insmod a few times) since it does
-not understand Bourne shell grammer. It does handle pipes, redirects, and
-job control though. Adding in command editing makes it very nice
-lightweight command prompt.
-
-hush is also quite small (just 18k) and it has very complete Bourne shell
-grammer. It handles if/then/else/fi just fine, but doesn't handle loops
-like for/do/done or case/esac and such. It also currently has a problem
-with job control.
-
-msh: The minix shell (adds just 30k) is quite complete and handles things
-like for/do/done, case/esac and all the things you expect a Bourne shell to
-do. It is not always pedantically correct about Bourne shell grammer (try
-running the shell testscript "tests/sh.testcases" on it and compare vs bash)
-but for most things it works quite well. It also uses only vfork, so it can
-be used on uClinux systems. This was only recently added, so there is still
-room to shrink it further...
-
-ash: This adds about 60k in the default configuration and is the most
-complete and most pedantically correct shell included with busybox. This
-shell was also recently added, and several people (mainly Vladimir and Erik)
-have been working on it. There are a number of configurable things at the
-top of ash.c as well, so check those out if you want to tweak things. The
-Posix math support is currently disabled (that bit of code was horrible) but
-will be restored for the next BusyBox release.
+ Full functionality requires Linux 2.2.x or better. A large fraction of the
+ code should run on just about anything. While the current code is fairly
+ Linux specific, it should be fairly easy to port the majority of the code
+ to support, say, FreeBSD or Solaris, or Mac OS X, or even Windows (if you
+ are into that sort of thing).
----------------
Getting help:
When you find you need help, you can check out the BusyBox mailing list
-archives at http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/ or even join
+archives at http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/ or even join
the mailing list if you are interested.
----------------
Bugs:
-If you find bugs, please submit a bug report. Full instructions on how to
-report a bug are found at http://bugs.lineo.com/Reporting.html.
+If you find bugs, please submit a detailed bug report to the BusyBox mailing
+list at busybox@mail.busybox.net. A well-written bug report should include a
+transcript of a shell session that demonstrates the bad behavior and enables
+anyone else to duplicate the bug on their own machine. The following is such
+an example:
-For the impatient: To submit a bug, simply send an email describing the problem
-to submit@bugs.lineo.com. Bug reports should look something like this:
-
- To: submit@bugs.lineo.com
+ To: busybox@mail.busybox.net
From: diligent@testing.linux.org
- Subject: /bin/true doesn't work
-
- Package: busybox
- Version: 0.51
-
- When I invoke '/bin/true' it doesn't work. I expected it to return
- a "0" but it returned a "1" instead. Here is the transcript:
- $ /bin/true ; echo $?
- 1
- With GNU /bin/true, I get the following output:
- $ /bin/true ; echo $?
- 0
- I am using Debian 2.2r2, kernel version 2.2.18, and the latest
- uClibc from CVS. Thanks for the wonderful program!
+ Subject: /bin/date doesn't work
+
+ Package: BusyBox
+ Version: 1.00
+
+ When I execute BusyBox 'date' it produces unexpected results.
+ With GNU date I get the following output:
+
+ $ date
+ Fri Oct 8 14:19:41 MDT 2004
+
+ But when I use BusyBox date I get this instead:
+
+ $ date
+ illegal instruction
+
+ I am using Debian unstable, kernel version 2.4.25-vrs2 on a Netwinder,
+ and the latest uClibc from CVS. Thanks for the wonderful program!
+
-Diligent
Note the careful description and use of examples showing not only what BusyBox
does, but also a counter example showing what an equivalent GNU app does. Bug
-reports lacking such detail may take a _long_ time to be fixed... Thanks for
-understanding.
+reports lacking such detail may never be fixed... Thanks for understanding.
----------------
-FTP:
+Downloads:
-Source for the latest released version can always be downloaded from
- ftp://ftp.lineo.com/pub/busybox.
+Source for the latest released version, as well as daily snapshots, can always
+be downloaded from
+ http://busybox.net/downloads/
----------------
CVS:
BusyBox now has its own publicly browsable CVS tree at:
- http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/
+ http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/
Anonymous CVS access is available. For instructions, check out:
- http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html
+ http://busybox.net/cvs_anon.html
For those that are actively contributing there is even CVS write access:
- http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html
+ http://busybox.net/cvs_write.html
----------------
Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
- Erik Andersen
- <andersen@lineo.com>
- <andersee@debian.org>
- <andersee@codepoet.org>
-
-<blatant plug>
-Many thanks to go to Lineo for paying me to work on busybox.
-</blatant plug>
+ Erik Andersen
+ <andersen@codepoet.org>
projects / oweals / busybox.git / blobdiff