| Eric Andersen | cc8ed39 | 1999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | Please see the LICENSE file for copyright information. |
| Erik Andersen | 330fd2b | 2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 2 | |
| 3 | BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single |
| 4 | small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities |
| 5 | you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip, |
| 6 | tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or |
| 7 | emdedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options then |
| 8 | their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide |
| 9 | the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts. |
| Eric Andersen | cc8ed39 | 1999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 10 | |
| Erik Andersen | 330fd2b | 2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 11 | BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind. |
| 12 | It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or |
| 13 | features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded |
| 14 | systems. To create a working system, just add a kernel, a shell (such as ash), |
| 15 | and an editor (such as elvis-tiny or ae). |
| Eric Andersen | cc8ed39 | 1999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 16 | |
| Erik Andersen | 330fd2b | 2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 17 | Busybox was originally written to support the Debian Rescue/Install disks, but |
| 18 | it also makes an excellent environment for any small or embedded system. |
| Eric Andersen | cc8ed39 | 1999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 19 | |
| Erik Andersen | 330fd2b | 2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 20 | As of version 0.20 there is a version number. : ) Also as of version 0.20, |
| 21 | BusyBox is now modularized to easily allow you to build only the components you |
| 22 | need, thereby reducing binary size. To turn off unwanted Busybox components, |
| 23 | simply edit the file busybox.def.h and comment out the components you do not |
| 24 | need using C++ style (//) comments. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | After the build is complete a busybox.links file is generated which is then |
| 27 | used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the busybox binary for all |
| 28 | compiled in functions. By default, 'make install' will place the symlink |
| 29 | forest into `pwd`/_install unless you have defined the PREFIX environment |
| 30 | variable (i.e. make PREFIX="/tmp/foo" install) |
| Eric Andersen | cc8ed39 | 1999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 31 | |
| Eric Andersen | ded6259 | 1999-11-18 00:19:26 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 32 | Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to: |
| 33 | Erik Andersen |
| 34 | <andersen@lineo.com> |
| Eric Andersen | 664584b | 1999-12-11 23:25:59 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 35 | <andersee@debian.org> |
| Eric Andersen | cc8ed39 | 1999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 36 | |
| Eric Andersen | 84b0092 | 1999-12-11 04:16:51 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 37 | <blatent plug> |
| 38 | Many thanks to go to Lineo for paying me to work on busybox. |
| 39 | </blatent plug> |
| 40 | |