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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>
86
87 <br> The illustrious Larry Doolittle has made a PostScript chart of the growth
88 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.)
94
Eric Andersen09580932001-04-10 20:10:55 +000095 <li> <b>10 April 2001 -- BusyBox 0.51 released</b>
96 <br>
97
98 BusyBox 0.51 (the "rock-solid release") is now out there. This
99 release adds only 2 new applets: env and vi. The vi applet,
100 contributed by Sterling Huxley, is very functional, and is only
101 22k. This release fixes 3 critical bugs in the 0.50 release.
102 There were 2 potential segfaults in lash (the busybox shell) in
103 the 0.50 release which are now fixed. Another critical bug in
104 0.50 which is now fixed: syslogd from 0.50 could potentially
105 deadlock the init process and thereby break your entire system.
106 <p>
107
108 There are a number of improvements in this release as well. For
109 one thing, the wget applet is greatly improved. Dmitry Zakharov
110 added FTP support, and Laurence Anderson make wget fully RFC
111 compliant for HTTP 1.1. The mechanism for including utility
112 functions in previous releases was clumsy and error prone. Now
113 all utility functions are part of a new libbb library, which makes
114 maintaining utility functions much simpler. And BusyBox now
115 compiles on itanium systems (thanks to the Debian itanium porters
116 for letting me use their system!).
117 <p>
118 You can read the
119 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> for
120 complete details. BusyBox 0.51 can be downloaded from
121 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
122 <p>Have Fun!
123 <p>
124
Eric Andersenf77d8862001-04-01 04:49:41 +0000125 <li> <b>Busybox Boot-Floppy Image</b>
126
127 <p>Because you asked for it, we have made available a <a href=
128 "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img"> Busybox boot floppy
129 image</a>. Here's how you use it:
130
131 <ol>
132
133 <li> <a href= "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img">
134 Download the image</a>
135
136 <li> dd it onto a floppy like so: <tt> dd if=busybox.floppy.img
137 of=/dev/fd0 ; sync </tt>
138
139 <li> Pop it in a machine and boot up.
140
141 </ol>
142
143 <p> If you want to look at the contents of the initrd image, do this:
144
145 <pre>
146 mount ./busybox.floppy.img /mnt -o loop -t msdos
147 cp /mnt/initrd.gz /tmp
148 umount /mnt
149 gunzip /tmp/initrd.gz
150 mount /tmp/initrd /mnt -o loop -t minix
151 </pre>
152
153
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000154 <li> <b>15 March 2001 -- BusyBox 0.50 released</b>
155 <br>
156
157 This release adds several new applets including ifconfig, route, pivot_root, stty,
158 and tftp, and also fixes tons of bugs. Tab completion in the
159 shell is now working very well, and the shell's environment variable
160 expansion was fixed. Tons of other things were fixed or made
161 smaller. For a fairly complete overview, see the
162 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
163 <p>
164 lash (the busybox shell) is still with us, fixed up a bit so it
165 now behaves itself quite nicely. It really is quite usable as
166 long as you don't expect it to provide Bourne shell grammer.
167 Standard things like pipes, redirects, command line editing, and
168 environment variable expansion work great. But we have found that
169 this shell, while very usable, does not provide an extensible
170 framework for adding in full Bourne shell behavior. So the first order of
171 business as we begin working on the next BusyBox release will be to merge in the new shell
172 currently in progress at
173 <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry Doolittle's website</a>.
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000174 <p>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000175
176
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000177 <li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +0000178 <br>
179
180 Several new applets, lots of bug fixes, cleanups, and many smaller
181 things made nicer. Several cleanups and improvements to the shell.
182 For a list of the most interesting changes
183 you might want to look at the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
184 <p>
185 Special thanks go out to Matt Kraai and Larry Doolittle for all their
186 work on this release, and for keeping on top of things while I've been
187 out of town.
188 <p>
189 <em>Special Note</em><br>
190
191 BusyBox 0.49 was supposed to have replaced lash, the BusyBox
192 shell, with a new shell that understands full Bourne shell/Posix shell grammer.
193 Well, that simply didn't happen in time for this release. A new
194 shell that will eventually replace lash is already under
195 construction. This new shell is being developed by Larry
196 Doolittle, and could use all of our help. Please see the work in
197 progress on <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
198 and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
199 release of BusyBox.
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000200 <p>
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +0000201
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000202 <li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000203 <br>
204
205 This release fixes lots and lots of bugs. This has had some very
206 rigorous testing, and looks very, very clean. The usual tar
207 update of course: tar no longer breaks hardlinks, tar -xzf is
208 optionally supported, and the LRP folks will be pleased to know
209 that 'tar -X' and 'tar --exclude' are both now in. Applets are
Matt Kraaie3a94f72000-12-13 19:50:48 +0000210 now looked up using a binary search making lash (the busybox
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000211 shell) much faster. For the new debian-installer (for Debian
212 woody) a .udeb can now be generated.
213 <p>
Matt Kraaie3a94f72000-12-13 19:50:48 +0000214 The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000215 the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
216 <p>
217 Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
218 this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000219 <p>
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000220
221
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000222 <li> <b>Old News</b>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000223 <br>
Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +0000224 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 +0000225</ul>
226
227
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000228<!-- Begin Download section -->
229
230<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
231 <A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
232 Download
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000233 </B></BIG></A>
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000234</TD></TR>
235<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
236<ul>
Mark Whitley8ba1b112001-01-25 23:29:58 +0000237
238 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
Eric Andersenbdcc6fb2000-09-26 06:15:12 +0000239 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
Mark Whitley8ba1b112001-01-25 23:29:58 +0000240
241 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
242 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
243
244 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000245 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
246 anonymous
247 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
248 for those that are actively contributing there is even
249 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
Mark Whitley8ba1b112001-01-25 23:29:58 +0000250
Eric Andersen4a971ae2000-06-22 01:27:11 +0000251</ul>
252
253
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000254<!-- Begin Docs section -->
255
256<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
257 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
258 Documentation
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000259 </B></BIG></A>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000260</TD></TR>
261<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
262Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
263<ul>
Eric Andersenbdcc6fb2000-09-26 06:15:12 +0000264 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
265 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
266 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
267 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
268 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
269 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
Eric Andersen43622002000-12-13 18:30:13 +0000270 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
271 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000272 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
Eric Andersenbdcc6fb2000-09-26 06:15:12 +0000273 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
Eric Andersenaec27bc2000-07-11 18:18:40 +0000274 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
275 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
276 a good place to start.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000277</ul>
278
279
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000280<!-- Begin Links section -->
281
282<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
283 <A NAME="links">
284 <BIG><B>
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000285 Important Links
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000286 </B></BIG>
287 </A>
288</TD></TR>
289<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
290
291<ul>
292
293 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
294 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
295 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
296 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
297 <p>
298
Eric Andersen5efa2292001-03-05 18:26:50 +0000299 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000300 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
301 <p>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000302 <li><a href="http://tinylogin.lineo.com/">TinyLogin</a>
303 is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
304 and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
305 <p>
306
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000307 <li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000308 is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
309 a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
310 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000311 BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000312 <p>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000313
Eric Andersen766c0122000-06-21 22:43:07 +0000314 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
315 <p>
316
317 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
318 <p>
319
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000320 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
321 <p>
322
323</ul>
324
325
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000326<!-- Begin Projects section -->
327
328<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#ccccc0" ALIGN=center>
329 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
330 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
Matt Kraai18d50642001-01-31 02:13:05 +0000331 </B></BIG></A>
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000332</TD></TR>
333<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
334
335<p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
336listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
337
338<ul>
339 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
340 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
341 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
342 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
343 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
344 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
345 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
346 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
347 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
348 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
349 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
350 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
351 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
352 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
353 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000354 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
Eric Andersenc36c2ba2001-03-16 07:16:12 +0000355 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
356 <li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
Mark Whitley74476422001-03-20 19:57:30 +0000357
358 <li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
359 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
360 Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
361 Erik at the top of <a href=
362 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
363 page</a>
Mark Whitley798ab302001-03-13 17:08:54 +0000364
Eric Andersen1b622ff2000-12-14 15:43:57 +0000365</ul>
366
367<p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
368you.
369
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000370
371
372<!-- End of Table -->
373
374</TD></TR>
375</TABLE>
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000376
377
378
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384 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
385 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
386 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
Eric Andersendfba13d2001-03-16 08:30:00 +0000387 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +0000388 </font>
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