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Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +00001Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +00002
3BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
4small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
5you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
6tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +00007embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +00008their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
9the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +000010
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000011BusyBox was originally written to support the Debian Rescue/Install disks, but
12it also makes an excellent environment for any small or embedded system.
13
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000014BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
15It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
16features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
Eric Andersen9e6089e2001-08-02 19:31:08 +000017systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a kernel.
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +000018
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000019As of version 0.20 there is now a version number. : ) Also as of version 0.20,
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000020BusyBox is now modularized to easily allow you to build only the components you
Glenn L McGrath062c74f2002-11-27 09:29:49 +000021need, thereby reducing binary size. Run 'make config' or 'make menuconfig'
22for select the functionality that you wish to enable.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000023
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +000024After the build is complete, a busybox.links file is generated. This is
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000025used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the busybox binary for all
26compiled in functions. By default, 'make install' will place the symlink
27forest into `pwd`/_install unless you have defined the PREFIX environment
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +000028variable (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install')
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +000029
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000030If you wish to install hardlinks, rather than symlinks, you can use
31'make install-hardlinks' instead.
32
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000033----------------
Mark Whitley3654ca52001-01-26 20:58:23 +000034
35Supported architectures:
36
37 Busybox in general will build on any architecture supported by gcc. It has
38 a few specialized features added for __sparc__ and __alpha__. insmod
Eric Andersen2835efe2001-07-25 16:58:58 +000039 functionality is currently limited to x86, ARM, SH3/4, powerpc, m68k,
Miles Bader130bec52002-04-01 09:37:27 +000040 MIPS, and v850e.
Mark Whitley3654ca52001-01-26 20:58:23 +000041
42Supported libcs:
43
Eric Andersen85c3c3f2003-07-16 07:31:14 +000044 glibc-2.0.x, glibc-2.1.x, glibc-2.2.x, glibc-2.3.x, uClibc. People
Eric Andersene5d58c32001-11-10 10:46:42 +000045 are looking at newlib and diet-libc, but consider them unsupported,
Eric Andersen85c3c3f2003-07-16 07:31:14 +000046 untested, or worse. Linux-libc5 is no longer supported -- you
47 should probably use uClibc instead if you want a small C library.
Mark Whitley3654ca52001-01-26 20:58:23 +000048
49Supported kernels:
50
Eric Andersen85c3c3f2003-07-16 07:31:14 +000051 Full functionality requires Linux 2.2.x or better. A large fraction of the
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000052 code should run on just about anything. While the current code is fairly
53 Linux specific, it should be fairly easy to port the majority of the code
54 to, say, FreeBSD or Solaris, or MacOsX, or even Windows (if you are into that
55 sortof thing).
Mark Whitley3654ca52001-01-26 20:58:23 +000056
57----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000058
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000059Getting help:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000060
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000061When you find you need help, you can check out the BusyBox mailing list
Eric Andersen2423b122001-12-08 01:56:15 +000062archives at http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/ or even join
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000063the mailing list if you are interested.
64
65----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000066
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000067Bugs:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000068
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000069If you find bugs, please submit a detailed bug report to the busybox mailing
Eric Andersenf1d3ac42003-10-22 10:19:01 +000070list at busybox@mail.busybox.net. A well-written bug report should include a
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000071transcript of a shell session that demonstrates the bad behavior and enables
72anyone else to duplicate the bug on their own machine. The following is such
73an example:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000074
Eric Andersenf1d3ac42003-10-22 10:19:01 +000075 To: busybox@mail.busybox.net
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000076 From: diligent@testing.linux.org
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000077 Subject: /bin/date doesn't work
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000078
79 Package: busybox
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000080 Version: 1.00
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000081
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +000082 When I execute Busybox 'date' it produces unexpected results.
83 With GNU date I get the following output:
84
85 $ date
86 Wed Mar 21 14:19:41 MST 2001
87
88 But when I use BusyBox date I get this instead:
89
90 $ date
91 llegal instruction
92
93 I am using Debian unstable, kernel version 2.4.19-rmk1 on an Netwinder,
94 and the latest uClibc from CVS. Thanks for the wonderful program!
95
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000096 -Diligent
97
98Note the careful description and use of examples showing not only what BusyBox
99does, but also a counter example showing what an equivalent GNU app does. Bug
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +0000100reports lacking such detail may never be fixed... Thanks for understanding.
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000101
102----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +0000103
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000104FTP:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +0000105
Eric Andersenb9c0b992001-12-22 00:37:54 +0000106Source for the latest released version, as well as daily snapshots, can always
107be downloaded from
108 http://busybox.net/downloads/
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000109
110----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +0000111
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000112CVS:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +0000113
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +0000114BusyBox now has its own publicly browsable CVS tree at:
Eric Andersen2423b122001-12-08 01:56:15 +0000115 http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000116
117Anonymous CVS access is available. For instructions, check out:
Eric Andersen2423b122001-12-08 01:56:15 +0000118 http://busybox.net/cvs_anon.html
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000119
120For those that are actively contributing there is even CVS write access:
Eric Andersen2423b122001-12-08 01:56:15 +0000121 http://busybox.net/cvs_write.html
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000122
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000123----------------
124
Eric Andersended62591999-11-18 00:19:26 +0000125Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
126 Erik Andersen
Eric Andersenbdfd0d72001-10-24 05:00:29 +0000127 <andersen@codepoet.org>
Eric Andersencb81e642003-07-14 21:21:08 +0000128 <andersen@codepoet.org>
Eric Andersen84b00921999-12-11 04:16:51 +0000129