The development branch of busybox is stable enough for wider testing, so + you can now + download, + the first prerelease of 1.1.0. This prerelease includes a lot of + new + functionality: new applets, new features, and extensive rewrites of + several existing applets. This prerelease should be noticeably more + standards + compliant than earlier versions of busybox, although we're + still working out the bugs.
-A new stable release (BusyBox + 1.01) is now available for download, containing over a hundred + small + fixes that have cropped up since the 1.00 release.
-| - - B u s y B o x - - | -
+
+ Bug reports sometimes get lost when posted to the mailing list. The + developers of BusyBox are busy people, and have only so much they can keep + in their brains at a time. In my case, I'm lucky if I can remember my own + name, much less a bug report posted last week... To prevent your bug report + from getting lost, if you find a bug in BusyBox, please use the + shiny new Bug and Patch Tracking System + to post all the gory details. -
| - - - Older BusyBox News - - - |
-
+ + It is therefore with great satisfaction that I declare each and every + device already shipping with BusyBox is now officially out of date. + The highly anticipated release of BusyBox 1.00 has arrived! - + + + Over three years in development, BusyBox 1.00 represents a tremendous + improvement over the old 0.60.x stable series. Now featuring a Linux + KernelConf based configuration system (as used by the Linux kernel), + Linux 2.6 kernel support, many many new applets, and the development + work and testing of thousands of people from around the world. + + + + If you are already using BusyBox, you are strongly encouraged to upgrade to + BusyBox 1.00. If you are considering developing an embedded Linux device + or software distribution, you may wish to investigate if using BusyBox is + right for your application. If you need help getting started using + BusyBox, if you wish to donate to help cover expenses, or if you find a bug + and need help reporting it, you are invited to visit the BusyBox FAQ. + + - |
| - - - Important Links - - - |
+ As usual you can download busybox here.
-
Have Fun! - Have Fun! + + On a less happy note, My 92 year old grandmother (my dad's mom) passed away + yesterday (June 19th). The funeral will be Thursday in a little town about + 2 hours south of my home. I've checked and there is absolutely no way I + could be back in time for the funeral if I attend OLS and give my presentation + as scheduled. + + As such, it is with great reluctance and sadness that I have come + to the conclusion I will have to make my appologies and skip OLS + this year. + - - |
+
+ Ok, I lied. It turns out that -pre9 will not be the final BusyBox + pre-release. With any luck however -pre10 will be, since I really + want to get BusyBox 1.0.0 released very soon. As usual, please do not + bother to send in patches adding cool new features at this time. Only + bug-fix patches will be accepted. It would also be very helpful if + people could continue to review the BusyBox documentation and submit + improvements. +
+ The changelog has all the details. + And as usual you can download busybox here. - -
-
|
-
- Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
- Erik Andersen - The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000, Erik Andersen. - - |
+
- 
- |
-
- 
- |
+
- 
- |
+ Here goes the final BusyBox pre-release... This is your last chance for
+ bug fixes. With luck this will be released as BusyBox 1.0.0 later this
+ week. Please do not bother to send in patches adding cool new features at
+ this time. Only bug-fix patches will be accepted. It would also be
+ very helpful if people could help review the BusyBox documentation
+ and submit improvements. I've spent a lot of time updating the
+ documentation to make it better match reality, but I could really use some
+ assistance in checking that the features supported by the various applets
+ match the features listed in the documentation.
-
-
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+
- 
- |
+
+ + If you have submitted patches, and they are not in this release + and I have not emailed you explaining why your patch was + rejected, it is safe to say that I have lost your patch. That + happens sometimes. Please do NOT send all your patches, + support questions, etc, directly to Erik. I get hundreds of + emails every day (which is why I end up losing patches + sometimes in the flood)... The busybox mailing list is the + right place to send your patches, support questions, etc. +
+ + I would like to especially thank Vladimir Oleynik (vodz), Glenn + McGrath (bug1), Robert Griebl (sandman), and Manuel Novoa III + (mjn3) for their significant efforts and contributions that + have made this release possible. +
+ + As usual you can download busybox here. + You don't really need to bother with the + changelog, as the changes + vs the stable version are way too extensive to easily enumerate. + But you can take a look if you really want too. + +
Have Fun! +
+ + + +
+
+ + I am very pleased to announce that the BusyBox 0.60.5 (stable) + is now available for download. This is a bugfix release for + the stable series to address all the problems that have turned + up since the last release. Unfortunately, the previous release + had a few nasty bugs (i.e. init could deadlock, gunzip -c tried + to delete source files, cp -a wouldn't copy symlinks, and init + was not always providing controlling ttys when it should have). + I know I said that the previous release would be the end of the + 0.60.x series. Well, it turns out I'm a liar. But this time I + mean it (just like last time ;-). This will be the last + release for the 0.60.x series -- all further development work + will be done for the development busybox tree. Expect the development + version to have its first real release very very soon now... + +
+ The changelog has all + the details. As usual you can download busybox here. +
Have Fun! +
+ +
+
+ + I am very pleased to announce that the BusyBox 0.60.4 + (stable) is now available for download. This is primarily + a bugfix release for the stable series to address all + the problems that have turned up since the last + release. This will be the last release for the 0.60.x series. + I mean it this time -- all further development work will be done + on the development busybox tree, which is quite solid now and + should soon be getting its first real release. + +
+ The changelog has all + the details. As usual you can download busybox here. +
Have Fun! +
+ + +
+
+ + I am very pleased to announce that the BusyBox 0.60.3 (stable) is + now available for download. This is primarily a bugfix release + for the stable series. A number of problems have turned up since + the last release, and this should address most of those problems. + This should be the last release for the 0.60.x series. The + development busybox tree has been progressing nicely, and will + hopefully be ready to become the next stable release. + +
+ The changelog has all + the details. As usual you can download busybox here. +
Have Fun! +
+ + +
+
+ + Busybox.net is now much more available, thanks to + the fine folks at http://i-netinnovations.com/ + who are providing hosting for busybox.net and + uclibc.org. In addition, we now have two mirrors: + http://busybox.linuxmagic.com/ + in Canada and + http://busybox.csservers.de/ + in Germany. I hope this makes things much more + accessible for everyone! + + +
Thanks to the generosity of a number of busybox +users, we have been able to purchase busybox.net +(which is where you are probably reading this). +Right now, busybox.net and uclibc.org are both +living on my home system (at the end of my DSL +line). I apologize for the abrupt move off of +busybox.lineo.com. Unfortunately, I no longer have +the access needed to keep that system updated (for +example, you might notice the daily snapshots there +stopped some time ago).
+ +Busybox.net is currently hosted on my home +server, at the end of a DSL line. Unfortunately, +the load on them is quite heavy. To address this, +I'm trying to make arrangements to get busybox.net +co-located directly at an ISP. To assist in the +co-location effort, Mark Whitley +(author of busybox sed, cut, and grep) has donated +his NetWinder computer +for hosting busybox.net and uclibc.org. Once this +system is co-located, the current speed problems +should be completely eliminated. Hopefully, too, +some of you will volunteer to set up some mirror +sites, to help to distribute the load a bit.
+ +
+ Since some people expressed concern over BusyBox
+donations, let me assure you that no one is getting
+rich here. All BusyBox and uClibc donations will be
+spent paying for bandwidth and needed hardware
+upgrades. For example, Mark's NetWinder currently
+has just 64Meg of memory. As demonstrated when
+google spidered the site the other day, 64 Megs in
+not enough, so I'm going to be ordering 256Megs of
+ram and a larger hard drive for the box today. So
+far, donations received have been sufficient to
+cover almost all expenses. In the future, we may
+have co-location fees to worry about, but for now
+we are ok. A HUGE thank-you goes out to
+everyone that has contributed!
+ -Erik
We am very pleased to announce that the BusyBox +0.60.2 (stable) is now released to the world. This +one is primarily a bugfix release for the stable +series, and it should take care of most everyone's +needs till we can get the nice new stuff we have +been working on in CVS ready to release (with the +wonderful new buildsystem). The biggest change in +this release (beyond bugfixes) is the fact that msh +(the minix shell) has been re-worked by Vladimir N. +Oleynik (vodz) and so it no longer crashes when +told to do complex things with backticks.
+ +This release has been tested on x86, ARM, and +powerpc using glibc 2.2.4, libc5, and uClibc, so it +should work with just about any Linux system you +throw it at. See the changelog for most +of the details. The last release was +very solid for people, and this one should +be even better.
+ +As usual BusyBox 0.60.2 can be downloaded from +http://www.busybox.net/downloads.
+ +Have Fun.
+ -Erik
+ +I was going to pay it all myself, but my wife didn't like that +idea at all (big surprise). It turns out <insert argument +where she wins and I don't> she has better ideas +about what we should spend our money on that don't involve +busybox. She suggested I should ask for contributions on the +mailing list and web page. So... +
+ +I am hoping that if everyone could contribute a bit, we could pick +up the busybox.net domain name and cover the bandwidth costs. I +know that busybox is being used by a lot of companies as well as +individuals -- hopefully people and companies that are willing to +contribute back a bit. So if everyone could please help out, that +would be wonderful! +
+ + +
+ + This is a relatively minor bug fixing release that fixes + up the bugs that have shown up in the stable release in + the last few weeks. Fortunately, nothing too + serious has shown up. This release only fixes bugs -- no + new features, no new applets. So without further ado, + here it is. Come and get it. +
+ The + changelog has all + the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.1 can be downloaded from + http://busybox.net/downloads. +
Have Fun! +
+ + +
+ I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of + BusyBox 0.60.0. I have personally tested this release with libc5, glibc, + and uClibc on + x86, ARM, and powerpc using linux 2.2 and 2.4, and I know a number + of people using it on everything from ia64 to m68k with great success. + Everything seems to be working very nicely now, so getting a nice + stable bug-free(tm) release out seems to be in order. This releases fixes + a memory leak in syslogd, a number of bugs in the ash and msh shells, and + cleans up a number of things. + +
+ + Those wanting an easy way to test the 0.60.0 release with uClibc can + use User-Mode Linux + to give it a try by downloading and compiling + buildroot.tar.gz. + You don't have to be root or reboot your machine to run test this way. + Preconfigured User-Mode Linux kernel source is also on busybox.net. +
+ Another cool thing is the nifty + BusyBox Tutorial contributed by K Computing. This requires + a ShockWave plugin (or standalone viewer), so you may want to grab the + the GPLed shockwave viewer from here + to view the tutorial. +
+ + Finally, In case you didn't notice anything odd about the + version number of this release, let me point out that this release + is not 0.53, because I bumped the version number up a + bit. This reflects the fact that this release is intended to form + a new stable BusyBox release series. If you need to rely on a + stable version of BusyBox, you should plan on using the stable + 0.60.x series. If bugs show up then I will release 0.60.1, then + 0.60.2, etc... This is also intended to deal with the fact that + the BusyBox build system will be getting a major overhaul for the + next release and I don't want that to break products that people + are shipping. To avoid that, the new build system will be + released as part of a new BusyBox development series that will + have some not-yet-decided-on odd version number. Once things + stabilize and the new build system is working for everyone, then + I will release that as a new stable release series. + +
+ The + changelog has all + the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.0 can be downloaded from + http://busybox.net/downloads. +
Have Fun! +
+ + +
+ + I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of + BusyBox 0.52 (the "new-and-improved rock-solid release"). This + release is the result of many hours of work and has tons + of bugfixes, optimizations, and cleanups. This release adds + several new applets, including several new shells (such as hush, msh, + and ash). + +
+ The + changelog covers + some of the more obvious details, but there are many many things that + are not mentioned, but have been improved in subtle ways. As usual, + BusyBox 0.52 can be downloaded from + http://busybox.net/downloads. +
Have Fun! +
+ + +
+The illustrious Larry Doolittle has made a PostScript chart of the growth +of the Busybox tarball size over time. It is available for downloading / +viewing right here. + +
(Note that while the number of applets in Busybox has increased, you +can still configure Busybox to be as small as you want by selectively +turning off whichever applets you don't need.) +
+ + +
+ + BusyBox 0.51 (the "rock-solid release") is now out there. This + release adds only 2 new applets: env and vi. The vi applet, + contributed by Sterling Huxley, is very functional, and is only + 22k. This release fixes 3 critical bugs in the 0.50 release. + There were 2 potential segfaults in lash (the busybox shell) in + the 0.50 release which are now fixed. Another critical bug in + 0.50 which is now fixed: syslogd from 0.50 could potentially + deadlock the init process and thereby break your entire system. +
+ + There are a number of improvements in this release as well. For + one thing, the wget applet is greatly improved. Dmitry Zakharov + added FTP support, and Laurence Anderson make wget fully RFC + compliant for HTTP 1.1. The mechanism for including utility + functions in previous releases was clumsy and error prone. Now + all utility functions are part of a new libbb library, which makes + maintaining utility functions much simpler. And BusyBox now + compiles on itanium systems (thanks to the Debian itanium porters + for letting me use their system!). +
+ You can read the + changelog for + complete details. BusyBox 0.51 can be downloaded from + http://busybox.net/downloads. +
Have Fun! +
+ +
Because you asked for it, we have made available a Busybox boot floppy +image. Here's how you use it: + +
-
+
+
- + Download the image + +
- dd it onto a floppy like so: dd if=busybox.floppy.img + of=/dev/fd0 ; sync + +
- Pop it in a machine and boot up. + +
If you want to look at the contents of the initrd image, do this: + +
+ mount ./busybox.floppy.img /mnt -o loop -t msdos + cp /mnt/initrd.gz /tmp + umount /mnt + gunzip /tmp/initrd.gz + mount /tmp/initrd /mnt -o loop -t minix ++ + +
+ + This release adds several new applets including ifconfig, route, pivot_root, stty, + and tftp, and also fixes tons of bugs. Tab completion in the + shell is now working very well, and the shell's environment variable + expansion was fixed. Tons of other things were fixed or made + smaller. For a fairly complete overview, see the + changelog. +
+ lash (the busybox shell) is still with us, fixed up a bit so it + now behaves itself quite nicely. It really is quite usable as + long as you don't expect it to provide Bourne shell grammer. + Standard things like pipes, redirects, command line editing, and + environment variable expansion work great. But we have found that + this shell, while very usable, does not provide an extensible + framework for adding in full Bourne shell behavior. So the first order of + business as we begin working on the next BusyBox release will be to merge in the new shell + currently in progress at + Larry Doolittle's website. +
+ + +
+ + Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller + things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell. + For a list of the most interesting changes + you might want to look at the changelog. +
+ Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their + work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been + out of town. +
+ Special Note
+
+ BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
+ shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
+ Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
+ shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
+ construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
+ Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
+ progress on Larry's website
+ and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
+ release of BusyBox.
+
+ +
+ + This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very + rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar + update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is + optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know + that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are + now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox + shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian + woody) a .udeb can now be generated. +
+ The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading + the changelog. +
+ Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to + this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti. +
+
+ + This release fixes lots of bugs (including an ugly bug in 0.46 + syslogd that could fork-bomb your system). Added several new + apps: rdate, wget, getopt, dos2unix, unix2dos, reset, unrpm, + renice, xargs, and expr. syslogd now supports network logging. + There are the usual tar updates. Most apps now use getopt for + more correct option parsing. + See the changelog + for complete details. + + +
+ + This release fixes several bugs (including a ugly bug in tar, + and fixes for NFSv3 mount support). Added a dumpkmap to allow + people to dump a binary keymaps for use with 'loadkmap', and a + completely reworked 'grep' and 'sed' which should behave better. + BusyBox shell can now also be used as a login shell. + See the changelog + for complete details. + + +
+ + This release has been slow in coming, but is very solid at this + point. BusyBox now supports libc5 as well as GNU libc. This + release provides the following new apps: cut, tr, insmod, ar, + mktemp, setkeycodes, md5sum, uuencode, uudecode, which, and + telnet. There are bug fixes for just about every app as well (see + the changelog for + details). +
+ Also, some exciting infrastructure news! Busybox now has its own + mailing list, + publically browsable + CVS tree, + anonymous + CVS access, and + for those that are actively contributing there is even + CVS write access. + I think this will be a huge help to the ongoing development of BusyBox. +
+ Also, for the curious, there is no 0.44 release. Somehow 0.44 got announced + a few weeks ago prior to its actually being released. To avoid any confusion + we are just skipping 0.44. +
+ Many thanks go out to the many people that have contributed to this release + of BusyBox (esp. Pavel Roskin)! + + +
+Turns out that there was still a bug in busybox syslogd. +For example, with the following test app: +
+#include <syslog.h>
+
+int do_log(char* msg, int delay)
+{
+ openlog("testlog", LOG_PID, LOG_DAEMON);
+ while(1) {
+ syslog(LOG_ERR, "%s: testing one, two, three\n", msg);
+ sleep(delay);
+ }
+ closelog();
+ return(0);
+};
+
+int main(void)
+{
+ if (fork()==0)
+ do_log("A", 2);
+ do_log("B", 3);
+}
+
+it should be logging stuff from both "A" and "B". As released in 0.43 only stuff
+from "A" would have been logged. This means that if init tries to log something
+while say ppp has the syslog open, init would block (which is bad, bad, bad).
++Karl M. Hegbloom has created a fix for the problem. +Thanks Karl! + + +
+I have finally gotten everything into a state where I feel pretty +good about things. This is definitely the most stable, solid release +so far. A lot of bugs have been fixed, and the following new apps +have been added: sh, basename, dirname, killall, uptime, +freeramdisk, tr, echo, test, and usleep. Tar has been completely +rewritten from scratch. Bss size has also been greatly reduced. +More details are available in the +changelog. +Oh, and as a special bonus, I wrote some fairly comprehensive +documentation, complete with examples and full usage information. + +
+Many thanks go out to the fine people that have helped by submitting patches +and bug reports; particularly instrumental in helping for this release were +Karl Hegbloom, Pavel Roskin, Friedrich Vedder, Emanuele Caratti, +Bob Tinsley, Nicolas Pitre, Avery Pennarun, Arne Bernin, John Beppu, and Jim Gleason. +There were others so if I somehow forgot to mention you, I'm very sorry. +
+ +You can grab BusyBox 0.43 tarballs here. + +
+Unfortunately, I have not yet finished all the things I want to +do for BusyBox 0.43, so I am posting this pre-release for people +to poke at. This contains my complete rewrite of tar, which now weighs in at +5k (7k with all options turned on) and works for reading and writing +tarballs (which it does correctly for everything I have been able to throw +at it). Tar also (optionally) supports the "--exclude" option (mainly because +the Linux Router Project folks asked for it). This also has a pre-release +of the micro shell I have been writing. This pre-release should be stable +enough for production use -- it just isn't a release since I have some structural +changes I still want to make. +
+The pre-release can be found here. +Please let me know ASAP if you find any bugs. + +
+I am pleased to announce that on Tuesday March 28th at 5:48pm, weighing in at 7 +lbs. 12 oz, Micah Erik Andersen was born at LDS Hospital here in Salt Lake City. +He was born in the emergency room less then 5 minutes after we arrived -- and +it was such a relief that we even made it to the hospital at all. Despite the +fact that I was driving at an amazingly unlawful speed and honking at everybody +and thinking decidedly unkind thoughts about the people in our way, my wife +(inconsiderate of my feelings and complete lack of medical training) was lying +down in the back seat saying things like "I think I need to start pushing now" +(which she then proceeded to do despite my best encouraging statements to the +contrary). +
+Anyway, I'm glad to note that despite the much-faster-than-we-were-expecting +labor, both Shaunalei and our new baby boy are doing wonderfully. +
+So now that I am done with my excuse for the slow release cycle... +Progress on the next release of BusyBox has been slow but steady. I expect +to have a release sometime during the first week of April. This release will +include a number of important changes, including the addition of a shell, a +re-write of tar (to accommodate the Linux Router Project), and syslogd can now +accept multiple concurrent connections, fixing lots of unexpected blocking +problems. + + +
+ + This is the most solid BusyBox release so far. Many, many + bugs have been fixed. See the + changelog for details. + + Of particular interest, init will now cleanly unmount + filesystems on reboot, cp and mv have been rewritten and + behave much better, and mount and umount no longer leak + loop devices. Many thanks go out to Randolph Chung, + Karl M. Hegbloom, Taketoshi Sano, and Pavel Roskin for + their hard work on this release of BusyBox. Please pound + on it and let me know if you find any bugs. + +
+ + This release includes bugfixes to cp, mv, logger, true, false, + mkdir, syslogd, and init. New apps include wc, hostid, + logname, tty, whoami, and yes. New features include loop device + support in mount and umount, and better TERM handling by init. + The changelog can be found here. + +
+ + This release includes bugfixes to init (now includes inittab support), + syslogd, head, logger, du, grep, cp, mv, sed, dmesg, ls, kill, gunzip, and mknod. + New apps include sort, uniq, lsmod, rmmod, fbset, and loadacm. + In particular, this release fixes an important bug in tar which + in some cases produced serious security problems. + As always, the changelog can be found here. + +
+ I have received permission from Bruce Perens (the original author of BusyBox) + to set up this site as the new primary website for BusyBox. This website + will always contain pointers to the latest and greatest, and will also + contain the latest documentation on how to use BusyBox, what it can do, + what arguments its apps support, etc. + +
+ This release includes fixes to init, reboot, halt, kill, and ls, and contains + the new apps ping, hostname, mkfifo, free, tail, du, tee, and head. A full + changelog can be found here. +
+ This release includes fixes to tar, cat, ls, dd, rm, umount, find, df, + and make install, and includes new apps syslogd/klogd and logger. + + +