-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
-emdedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options then
-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 a kernel, a shell (such as ash),
-and an editor (such as elvis-tiny or ae).
-
-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 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 busybox.def.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 which is then
-used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the busybox binary for all
+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
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)
+variable (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install')
-Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
- Erik Andersen
- <andersen@lineo.com>
- <andersee@debian.org>
+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.
+ 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.
+
+
+Supported C Libraries:
+
+ 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:
+
+ 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://busybox.net/lists/busybox/ or even join
+the mailing list if you are interested.
+
+----------------
+
+Bugs:
+
+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:
+
+ To: busybox@mail.busybox.net
+ From: diligent@testing.linux.org
+ Subject: /bin/date doesn't work
-<blatent plug>
-Many thanks to go to Lineo for paying me to work on busybox.
-</blatent plug>
+ 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 never be fixed... Thanks for understanding.
+
+----------------
+
+Downloads:
+
+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://busybox.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/
+
+Anonymous CVS access is available. For instructions, check out:
+ http://busybox.net/cvs_anon.html
+
+For those that are actively contributing there is even CVS write access:
+ http://busybox.net/cvs_write.html
+
+----------------
+
+Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
+ Erik Andersen
+ <andersen@codepoet.org>
projects / oweals / busybox.git / blobdiff