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Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +00008<body text="#000000" alink="#660000" link="#660000" bgcolor="#dee2de" vlink="#660000">
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +00009
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Matt Kraai9ba0daf2001-01-31 01:59:46 +000023 <a href="/"><IMG SRC="images/busybox2.jpg" alt="BusyBox" border="0" width="360" height="230"></a><BR>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000024
25
26<!-- Begin Introduction section -->
27
28
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +000029<TABLE WIDTH="95%" CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=4 BORDER=1>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000030<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
31 <A NAME="intro"> <BIG><B>
32 The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +000033 </B></BIG></A>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000034</TD></TR>
35<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
36
37BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
38small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
39you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +000040tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or
41embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
42their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000043the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
44<p>
45BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
46It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +000047features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
Eric Andersen09580932001-04-10 20:10:55 +000048systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, a kernel, and a shell.
49For 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.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000050<p>
51
52BusyBox is now maintained by
Eric Andersen537d1652001-01-25 22:00:37 +000053<a href="http://codepoet.org/andersen/erik/erik.html">
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000054Erik Andersen</a>, and its ongoing development is being sponsored by
55<a href="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</a>.
56<p>
57BusyBox is licensed under the
58<a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a>
Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +000059<p>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000060
Mark Whitley74476422001-03-20 19:57:30 +000061
Mark Whitleyac21e932001-01-30 23:37:15 +000062<h3> Screenshot </h3>
63
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +000064<p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a screenshot of BusyBox
65is now available <a href="screenshot.html"> right here</a>
Mark Whitleyac21e932001-01-30 23:37:15 +000066
Mark Whitley74476422001-03-20 19:57:30 +000067
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +000068<H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
Matt Kraai8677d7b2000-12-15 15:41:03 +000069BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +000070To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000071
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000072<!-- Begin Latest News section -->
73
74<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
75 <A NAME="news">
76 <BIG><B>
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +000077 Latest News
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000078 </B></BIG>
79 </A>
80</TD></TR>
81<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
82
83<ul>
84
Mark Whitleyefcfe872001-04-10 21:58:32 +000085 <li> <b>10 April 2001 - Graph of Busybox Growth </b>
Eric Andersen93ffa952001-04-10 22:10:42 +000086 <br>
87 The illustrious Larry Doolittle has made a PostScript chart of the growth
Mark Whitleyefcfe872001-04-10 21:58:32 +000088 of the Busybox tarball size over time. It is available for downloading /
89 viewing <a href= "busybox-growth.ps"> right here</a>.
90
91 <p> (Note that while the number of applets in Busybox has increased, you
92 can still configure Busybox to be as small as you want by selectively
93 turning off whichever applets you don't need.)
Eric Andersen93ffa952001-04-10 22:10:42 +000094 <p>
Mark Whitleyefcfe872001-04-10 21:58:32 +000095
Eric Andersen09580932001-04-10 20:10:55 +000096 <li> <b>10 April 2001 -- BusyBox 0.51 released</b>
97 <br>
98
99 BusyBox 0.51 (the "rock-solid release") is now out there. This
100 release adds only 2 new applets: env and vi. The vi applet,
101 contributed by Sterling Huxley, is very functional, and is only
102 22k. This release fixes 3 critical bugs in the 0.50 release.
103 There were 2 potential segfaults in lash (the busybox shell) in
104 the 0.50 release which are now fixed. Another critical bug in
105 0.50 which is now fixed: syslogd from 0.50 could potentially
106 deadlock the init process and thereby break your entire system.
107 <p>
108
109 There are a number of improvements in this release as well. For
110 one thing, the wget applet is greatly improved. Dmitry Zakharov
111 added FTP support, and Laurence Anderson make wget fully RFC
112 compliant for HTTP 1.1. The mechanism for including utility
113 functions in previous releases was clumsy and error prone. Now
114 all utility functions are part of a new libbb library, which makes
115 maintaining utility functions much simpler. And BusyBox now
116 compiles on itanium systems (thanks to the Debian itanium porters
117 for letting me use their system!).
118 <p>
119 You can read the
120 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> for
121 complete details. BusyBox 0.51 can be downloaded from
122 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
123 <p>Have Fun!
124 <p>
125
Eric Andersenf77d8862001-04-01 04:49:41 +0000126 <li> <b>Busybox Boot-Floppy Image</b>
127
128 <p>Because you asked for it, we have made available a <a href=
129 "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img"> Busybox boot floppy
130 image</a>. Here's how you use it:
131
132 <ol>
133
134 <li> <a href= "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img">
135 Download the image</a>
136
137 <li> dd it onto a floppy like so: <tt> dd if=busybox.floppy.img
138 of=/dev/fd0 ; sync </tt>
139
140 <li> Pop it in a machine and boot up.
141
142 </ol>
143
144 <p> If you want to look at the contents of the initrd image, do this:
145
146 <pre>
147 mount ./busybox.floppy.img /mnt -o loop -t msdos
148 cp /mnt/initrd.gz /tmp
149 umount /mnt
150 gunzip /tmp/initrd.gz
151 mount /tmp/initrd /mnt -o loop -t minix
152 </pre>
153
154
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000155 <li> <b>15 March 2001 -- BusyBox 0.50 released</b>
156 <br>
157
158 This release adds several new applets including ifconfig, route, pivot_root, stty,
159 and tftp, and also fixes tons of bugs. Tab completion in the
160 shell is now working very well, and the shell's environment variable
161 expansion was fixed. Tons of other things were fixed or made
162 smaller. For a fairly complete overview, see the
163 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
164 <p>
165 lash (the busybox shell) is still with us, fixed up a bit so it
166 now behaves itself quite nicely. It really is quite usable as
167 long as you don't expect it to provide Bourne shell grammer.
168 Standard things like pipes, redirects, command line editing, and
169 environment variable expansion work great. But we have found that
170 this shell, while very usable, does not provide an extensible
171 framework for adding in full Bourne shell behavior. So the first order of
172 business as we begin working on the next BusyBox release will be to merge in the new shell
173 currently in progress at
174 <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry Doolittle's website</a>.
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000175 <p>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000176
177
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000178 <li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +0000179 <br>
180
181 Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller
182 things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell.
183 For a list of the most interesting changes
184 you might want to look at the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
185 <p>
186 Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their
187 work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been
188 out of town.
189 <p>
190 <em>Special Note</em><br>
191
192 BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
193 shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
194 Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
195 shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
196 construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
197 Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
198 progress on <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
199 and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
200 release of BusyBox.
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000201 <p>
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +0000202
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000203 <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000204 <br>
205
206 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
207 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
208 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
209 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
210 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
Matt Kraaie3a94f72000-12-13 19:50:48 +0000211 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000212 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
213 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
214 <p>
Matt Kraaie3a94f72000-12-13 19:50:48 +0000215 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000216 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
217 <p>
218 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
219 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000220 <p>
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000221
222
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000223 <li> <b>Old News</b>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000224 <br>
Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +0000225 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000226</ul>
227
228
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000229<!-- Begin Download section -->
230
231<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
232 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
233 Download
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000234 </B></BIG></A>
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000235</TD></TR>
236<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
237<ul>
Mark Whitley8ba1b112001-01-25 23:29:58 +0000238
239 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
Eric Andersenbdcc6fb2000-09-26 06:15:12 +0000240 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
Mark Whitley8ba1b112001-01-25 23:29:58 +0000241
242 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
243 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
244
245 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000246 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
247 anonymous
248 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
249 for those that are actively contributing there is even
250 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
Mark Whitley8ba1b112001-01-25 23:29:58 +0000251
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000252</ul>
253
254
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000255<!-- Begin Docs section -->
256
257<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
258 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
259 Documentation
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000260 </B></BIG></A>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000261</TD></TR>
262<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
263Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
264<ul>
Eric Andersenbdcc6fb2000-09-26 06:15:12 +0000265 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
266 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
267 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
268 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
269 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
270 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000271 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
272 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000273 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
Eric Andersenbdcc6fb2000-09-26 06:15:12 +0000274 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
Eric Andersenaec27bc2000-07-11 18:18:40 +0000275 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
276 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
277 a good place to start.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000278</ul>
279
280
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000281<!-- Begin Links section -->
282
283<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
284 <A NAME="links">
285 <BIG><B>
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000286 Important Links
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000287 </B></BIG>
288 </A>
289</TD></TR>
290<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
291
292<ul>
293
294 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
295 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
296 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
297 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
298 <p>
299
Eric Andersen5efa2292001-03-05 18:26:50 +0000300 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000301 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
302 <p>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000303 <li><a href="http://tinylogin.lineo.com/">TinyLogin</a>
304 is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
305 and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
306 <p>
307
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000308 <li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000309 is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
310 a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
311 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000312 BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000313 <p>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000314
Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +0000315 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
316 <p>
317
318 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
319 <p>
320
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000321 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
322 <p>
323
324</ul>
325
326
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000327<!-- Begin Projects section -->
328
329<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
330 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
331 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000332 </B></BIG></A>
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000333</TD></TR>
334<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
335
336<p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
337listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
338
339<ul>
340 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
341 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
342 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
343 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
344 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
345 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
346 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
347 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
348 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
349 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
350 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
351 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
352 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
353 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
354 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000355 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000356 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
357 <li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
Mark Whitley74476422001-03-20 19:57:30 +0000358
359 <li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
360 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
361 Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
362 Erik at the top of <a href=
363 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
364 page</a>
Mark Whitley798ab302001-03-13 17:08:54 +0000365
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000366</ul>
367
368<p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
369you.
370
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000371
372
373<!-- End of Table -->
374
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376</TABLE>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000377
378
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386 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
387 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000388 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000389 </font>
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