-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
their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
+BusyBox was originally written to support the Debian Rescue/Install disks, but
+it also makes an excellent environment for any small or embedded system.
+
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, /etc, and a kernel.
-BusyBox was originally written to support the Debian Rescue/Install disks, but
-it also makes an excellent 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.
+need, thereby reducing binary size. Run 'make config' or 'make menuconfig'
+for 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
forest into `pwd`/_install unless you have defined the PREFIX environment
variable (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install')
+If you wish to install hardlinks, rather than symlinks, you can use
+'make 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.
+ MIPS, cris, and v850e.
Supported libcs:
- glibc-2.0.x, glibc-2.1.x, glibc-2.2.x, Linux-libc5, uClibc. People
+ glibc-2.0.x, glibc-2.1.x, glibc-2.2.x, glibc-2.3.x, uClibc. People
are looking at newlib and diet-libc, but consider them unsupported,
- untested, or worse.
+ 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 2.0.x, 2.2.x, or 2.4.x. A large fraction
- of the code should run on just about anything.
-
-----------------
-
-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 a 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. Using hush is not yet recommended.
-
-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.
+ 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, say, FreeBSD or Solaris, or MacOsX, or even Windows (if you are into that
+ sortof thing).
----------------
Bugs:
-If you find bugs, please submit a bug report. Full instructions on how to
-report a bug are found at http://bugs.busybox.net/Reporting.html.
-
-For the impatient: To submit a bug, simply send an email describing the problem
-to submit@bugs.busybox.net. Bug reports should look something like this:
+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: submit@bugs.busybox.net
+ To: busybox@mail.busybox.net
From: diligent@testing.linux.org
- Subject: /bin/true doesn't work
+ Subject: /bin/date 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!
+ Version: 1.00
+
+ When I execute Busybox 'date' it produces unexpected results.
+ With GNU date I get the following output:
+
+ $ date
+ Wed Mar 21 14:19:41 MST 2001
+
+ But when I use BusyBox date I get this instead:
+
+ $ date
+ llegal instruction
+
+ I am using Debian unstable, kernel version 2.4.19-rmk1 on an 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.
----------------
Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
Erik Andersen
<andersen@codepoet.org>
- <andersee@debian.org>
+ <andersen@codepoet.org>
projects / oweals / busybox.git / blobdiff