Write all the help text for the util-linux utilities. Allow
people to locate the mtab file somewhere other that /etc to
accomodate read only root filesystems.
-Erik
diff --git a/libbb/mtab_file.c b/libbb/mtab_file.c
index 3d57290..2124e01 100644
--- a/libbb/mtab_file.c
+++ b/libbb/mtab_file.c
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
/* Busybox mount uses either /proc/mounts or /etc/mtab to
* get the list of currently mounted filesystems */
#if defined CONFIG_FEATURE_MTAB_SUPPORT
-const char mtab_file[] = "/etc/mtab";
+const char mtab_file[] = CONFIG_FEATURE_MTAB_FILENAME;
#else
const char mtab_file[] = "/proc/mounts";
#endif
diff --git a/util-linux/Config.in b/util-linux/Config.in
index 2494e6e..be56020 100644
--- a/util-linux/Config.in
+++ b/util-linux/Config.in
@@ -10,100 +10,144 @@
bool "dmesg"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ dmesg is used to examine or control the kernel ring buffer. When the
+ Linux kernel prints messages to the system log, they are stored in
+ the kernel ring buffer. You can use dmesg to print the kernel's ring
+ buffer, clear the kernel ring buffer, change the size of the kernel
+ ring buffer, and change the priority level at which kernel messages
+ are also logged to the system console. Enable this option if you
+ wish to enable the 'dmesg' utility.
config CONFIG_FBSET
bool "fbset"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ fbset is used to show or change the settings of a Linux frame buffer
+ device. The frame buffer device provides a simple and unique
+ interface to access a graphic display. Enable this option if you wish
+ to enable the 'fbset' utility.
+
config CONFIG_FEATURE_FBSET_FANCY
bool " Turn on extra fbset options"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FBSET
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ This option enables extended fbset options, allowing one to set the
+ framebuffer size, color depth, etc. interface to access a graphic
+ display. Enable this option if you wish to enable extended fbset
+ options.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_FBSET_READMODE
bool " Turn on fbset readmode support"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FBSET
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ This option allows fbset to read the video mode database stored by
+ default as /etc/fb.modes, which can be used to set frame buffer
+ device to pre-defined video modes.
config CONFIG_FDFLUSH
bool "fdflush"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Fdflush is only needed when changing media on slightly-broken
+ removable media drives. It is used to make Linux believe that a
+ hardware disk-change switch has been actuated, which causes Linux to
+ forget anything it has cached from the previous media. If you have
+ such a slightly-broken drive, you will need to run fdflush every time
+ you change a disk. Most people have working hardware and can safely
+ say leave this disabled.
config CONFIG_FDISK
bool "fdisk"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The fdisk utility is used to divide hard disks into one or more
+ logical disks, which are generally called partitions. This utility
+ can be used to list and edit the set of partitions or BSD style
+ 'disk slices' that are defined on a hard drive.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE
bool " Write support"
default y
depends on CONFIG_FDISK
help
- Allow changes to be written to disk, without this you
- will only be able to view the partition table.
+ Enabling this option allows you to create or change a partition table
+ and write those changes out to disk. If you leave this option
+ disabled, you will only be able to view the partition table.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_AIX_LABEL
bool " Support AIX disklabels"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Enabling this option allows you to create or change AIX disklabels.
+ Most people can safely leave this option disabled.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_SGI_LABEL
bool " Support SGI disklabels"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Enabling this option allows you to create or change SGI disklabels.
+ Most people can safely leave this option disabled.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_SUN_LABEL
bool " Support SUN disklabels"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Enabling this option allows you to create or change SUN disklabels.
+ Most people can safely leave this option disabled.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_OSF_LABEL
bool " Support BSD disklabels"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Enabling this option allows you to create or change BSD disklabels
+ and define and edit BSD disk slices.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_ADVANCED
bool " Support expert mode"
default n
depends on CONFIG_FDISK && CONFIG_FEATURE_FDISK_WRITABLE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Enabling this option allows you to do terribly unsafe things like
+ define arbitrary drive geometry, move the beginning of data in a
+ partition, and similarly evil things. Unless you have a very good
+ reason you would be wise to leave this disabled.
config CONFIG_FREERAMDISK
bool "freeramdisk"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Linux allows you to create ramdisks. This utility allows you to
+ delete them and completely free all memory that was used for the
+ ramdisk. For example, if you boot Linux into a ramdisk and later
+ pivot_root, you may want to free the memory that is allocated to the
+ ramdisk. If you have no use for freeing memory from a ramdisk, leave
+ this disabled.
config CONFIG_FSCK_MINIX
bool "fsck_minix"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The minix filesystem is a nice, small, compact, read-write filesystem
+ with little overhead. It is not a journaling filesystem however and
+ can encounted corruption if it is not properly unmounted or if the
+ power goes off in the middle of a write. This utility allows you to
+ check for and attempt to repair any corruption that occurs to a minix
+ filesystem.
config CONFIG_MKFS_MINIX
bool "mkfs_minix"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The minix filesystem is a nice, small, compact, read-write filesystem
+ with little overhead. If you wish to be able to create minix filesystems
+ this utility will do the job for you.
comment "Minix filesystem support"
depends on CONFIG_FSCK_MINIX || CONFIG_MKFS_MINIX
@@ -113,57 +157,87 @@
default y
depends on CONFIG_FSCK_MINIX || CONFIG_MKFS_MINIX
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ If you wish to be able to create version 2 minix filesystems, enable this.
+ If you enabled 'mkfs_minix' then you almost certainly want to be using the
+ version 2 filesystem support.
config CONFIG_GETOPT
bool "getopt"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The getopt utility is used to break up (parse) options in command
+ lines to make it easy to write complex shell scripts that also check
+ for legal (and illegal) options. If you want to write horribly
+ complex shell scripts, or use some horribly complex shell script
+ written by others, this utility may be for you. Most people will
+ wisely leave this disabled.
config CONFIG_HEXDUMP
bool "hexdump"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The hexdump utility is used to display binary data in a readable
+ way that is comparable to the output from most hex editors.
config CONFIG_HWCLOCK
bool "hwclock"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The hwclock utility is used to read and set the hardware clock
+ on a system. This is primarily used to set the correct time in
+ the hardware close, so the hardware will keep the correct time
+ when Linux is _not_ running.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_HWCLOCK_LONGOPTIONS
bool " Support long options (--hctosys,...)"
default n
depends on CONFIG_HWCLOCK
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ By default, the hwclock utility only uses short options. If you
+ are overly fond of the long options, such as --hctosys, --utc, etc)
+ then enable this option.
config CONFIG_LOSETUP
bool "losetup"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ losetup is used to associate or detach a loop device with a regular
+ file or block device, and to query the status of a loop device. This
+ version does not currently support enabling data encryption.
config CONFIG_MKSWAP
bool "mkswap"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The mkswap utility is used to configure a file or disk partition as
+ Linux swap space. This allows Linux to use the entire file or
+ partition as if it were additional RAM, which can greatly increase
+ the capability of low-memory machines. This additional memory is
+ much slower than real RAM, but can be very helpful at preventing your
+ applications being killed by the Linux out of memory (OOM) killer. Once
+ you have created swap space using 'mkswap' you need to enable the swap
+ space using the 'swapon' utility.
config CONFIG_MORE
bool "more"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ More is a simple utility which allows you to read text one screen
+ sized page at a time. If you want to read text that is larger than
+ the screen, and you are using anything faster than a 300 baud modem,
+ you will probably find this utility very helpful. If you don't have
+ any need to reading text files, you can leave this disabled.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_USE_TERMIOS
bool " Use termios to manipulate the screen"
default y
depends on CONFIG_MORE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ This option allows utilities such as 'more' and 'top' to determine
+ the size of the screen. If you leave this disabled, your utilities
+ that display things on the screen with be especially primitive and
+ will be unable to determine the current screen size, and will be
+ unable to move the cursor.
comment "Common options for ls and more"
depends on CONFIG_LS || CONFIG_MORE
@@ -173,31 +247,51 @@
default y
depends on CONFIG_LS || CONFIG_MORE
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ This option allows utilities such as 'ls' and 'more' to determine the
+ width of the screen, which can allow them to display additional text
+ or avoid wrapping text onto the next line. If you leave this
+ disabled, your utilities will be especially primitive and will be
+ unable to determine the current screen width.
config CONFIG_PIVOT_ROOT
bool "pivot_root"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The pivot_root utility swaps the mount points for the root filesystem
+ with some other mounted filesystem. This allows you to do all sorts
+ of wild and crazy things with your Linux system and is far more
+ powerful than 'chroot'.
config CONFIG_RDATE
bool "rdate"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ The rdate utility allows you to syncronize the date and time of your
+ system clock with the date and time of a remote networked system using
+ the RFC868 protocol, which is built into the inetd daemon on most
+ systems.
config CONFIG_SWAPONOFF
bool "swaponoff"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ This option enables both the 'swapon' and the 'swapoff' utilities.
+ Once you have created some swap space using 'mkswap', you also need
+ to enable your swap space with the 'swapon' utility. The 'swapoff'
+ utility is used, typically at system shutdown, to disable any swap
+ space. If you are not using any swap space, you can leave this
+ option disabled.
config CONFIG_MOUNT
bool "mount"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ All files and filesystems in Unix are arranged into one big directory
+ tree. The 'mount' utility is used to graft a filesystem onto a
+ particular part of the tree. A filesystem can either live on a block
+ device, or it can be accessible over the network, as is the case with
+ NFS filesystems. Most people using BusyBox will also want to enable
+ the 'mount' utility.
config CONFIG_NFSMOUNT
bool " Support mounting nfs file systems"
@@ -210,14 +304,18 @@
bool "umount"
default n
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ When you want to remove a mounted filesystem from its current mount point,
+ for example when you are shutting down the system, the 'umount' utility is
+ the tool to use. If you enabled the 'mount' utility, you almost certainly
+ also want to enable 'umount'.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_MOUNT_FORCE
bool " Support forced filesystem unmounting"
default n
depends on CONFIG_UMOUNT
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ This allows you to _force_ a filesystem to be umounted. This is generally
+ only useful when you want to get rid of an unreachable NFS system.
comment "Common options for mount/umount"
depends on CONFIG_MOUNT || CONFIG_UMOUNT
@@ -227,14 +325,34 @@
default n
depends on CONFIG_MOUNT || CONFIG_UMOUNT
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ Enabling this feature allows mount to use the '-o' loop options,
+ which lets you loop mount files. Mount will automagically setup and
+ free the necessary loop devices so you do not need to mess with the
+ 'losetup' utility unless you really want to. This is really only useful
+ if you plan to loop mount files.
config CONFIG_FEATURE_MTAB_SUPPORT
bool " Support for a real /etc/mtab (instead of /proc/mounts)"
default n
depends on CONFIG_MOUNT || CONFIG_UMOUNT
help
- Please submit a patch to add help text for this item.
+ If your root filesystem is writable and you wish to have the 'mount'
+ utility create an mtab file listing the filesystems which have been
+ mounted then you should enable this option. Most people that use
+ BusyBox have a read-only root filesystem, so they will leave this
+ option disabled and BusyBox will use the /proc/mounts file.
+
+config CONFIG_FEATURE_MTAB_FILENAME
+ string " mtab file location"
+ default "/etc/mtab"
+ depends on CONFIG_FEATURE_MTAB_SUPPORT
+ help
+ Some people have a read only root filesystem, but they also wish to
+ have the 'mount' utility create an mtab file listing the filesystems
+ which have been mounted. This option allows you to specify an alternative
+ location for the mtab file, such as /var/mtab, or /tmp/mtab. The default
+ value is /etc/mtab, which is where this file is located on most desktop
+ Linux systems.
endmenu