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busybox/docs/busybox.net/index.html
Mark Whitley 7447642a47 Added a section on the available Busybox boot-floppy image. Also provided some 
linkes to a Wired article on Midori Linux.
2001-03-20 19:57:30 +00:00

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<TITLE>BusyBox</TITLE>
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<B>B&nbsp;u&nbsp;s&nbsp;y&nbsp;B&nbsp;o&nbsp;x</B>
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<a href="/"><IMG SRC="images/busybox2.jpg" alt="BusyBox" border="0" width="360" height="230"></a><BR>
<!-- Begin Introduction section -->
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<A NAME="intro"> <BIG><B>
The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
</B></BIG></A>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or
embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
<p>
BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, a kernel, and an editor,
such as nano, e3, or elvis-tiny. For a really minimal system, you can even use
the busybox shell (not Bourne compatible, but very small and quite usable).
<p>
BusyBox is now maintained by
<a href="http://codepoet.org/andersen/erik/erik.html">
Erik Andersen</a>, and its ongoing development is being sponsored by
<a href="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</a>.
<p>
BusyBox is licensed under the
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a>
<p>
<h3> Busybox Boot-Floppy Image </h3>
<p> Because you asked for it, we have made available a <a href=
"ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img"> Busybox boot floppy
image</a>. Here's how you use it:
<ol>
<li> <a href= "ftp://opensource.lineo.com/busybox/busybox.floppy.img">
Download the image</a>
<li> dd it onto a floppy like so: <tt> dd if=busybox.floppy.img
of=/dev/fd0 ; sync </tt>
<li> Pop it in a machine and boot up.
</ol>
<p> If you want to look at the contents of the initrd image, do this:
<pre>
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
</pre>
<p> Enjoy.
<h3> Screenshot </h3>
<p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a screenshot of BusyBox
is now available <a href="screenshot.html"> right here</a>
<H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
<!-- Begin Latest News section -->
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<A NAME="news">
<BIG><B>
Latest News
</B></BIG>
</A>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
<ul>
<li> <b>15 March 2001 -- BusyBox 0.50 released</b>
<br>
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
<a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
<p>
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
<a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry Doolittle's website</a>.
<p>
<li> <b>27 January 2001 -- BusyBox 0.49 released</b>
<br>
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 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
<p>
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.
<p>
<em>Special Note</em><br>
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 <a href="http://doolittle.faludi.com/~larry/parser.html">Larry's website</a>
and help out if you can. This shell will be included in the next
release of BusyBox.
<p>
<li> <b>13 December 2000 -- BusyBox 0.48 released</b>
<br>
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.
<p>
The curious can get a list of some of the more interesting changes by reading
the <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a>.
<p>
Many thanks go out to the many many people that have contributed to
this release, especially Matt Kraai, Larry Doolittle, and Kent Robotti.
<p>
<li> <b>Old News</b>
<br>
For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
</ul>
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<A NAME="download"><BIG><B>
Download
</B></BIG></A>
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<ul>
<li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
<a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
<li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
<li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
<a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
anonymous
<a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
for those that are actively contributing there is even
<a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
</ul>
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<A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
Documentation
</B></BIG></A>
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Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
<ul>
<li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
<li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
<li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
<li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
<a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
a good place to start.
</ul>
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<A NAME="links">
<BIG><B>
Important Links
</B></BIG>
</A>
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<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
<ul>
<li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
<p>
<li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
<p>
<li><a href="http://tinylogin.lineo.com/">TinyLogin</a>
is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
<p>
<li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
<p>
<li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
<p>
<li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
<p>
<li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
<p>
</ul>
<!-- Begin Projects section -->
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<A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
Products/Projects Using BusyBox
</B></BIG></A>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#eeeee0">
<p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
<ul>
<li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
<li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
<li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
<li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
<li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
<li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
<li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
<li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
<li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
<li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
"http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
Erik at the top of <a href=
"http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
page</a>
</ul>
<p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
you.
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Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
<a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
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