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Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +00001Please see the LICENSE file for copyright information.
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
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000011BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
12It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
13features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
Eric Andersen09580932001-04-10 20:10:55 +000014systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, a shell, and a kernel. For
15a really minimal system, you can even use the busybox shell (not Bourne
16compatible, but very small and quite usable) and the busybox vi editor.
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +000017
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +000018BusyBox was originally written to support the Debian Rescue/Install disks, but
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000019it also makes an excellent environment for any small or embedded system.
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +000020
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000021As of version 0.20 there is now a version number. : ) Also as of version 0.20,
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000022BusyBox is now modularized to easily allow you to build only the components you
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +000023need, thereby reducing binary size. To turn off unwanted BusyBox components,
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000024simply edit the file "Config.h" and comment out the components you do not need
25using C++ style (//) comments.
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000026
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +000027After the build is complete, a busybox.links file is generated. This is
Erik Andersen330fd2b2000-05-19 05:35:19 +000028used by 'make install' to create symlinks to the busybox binary for all
29compiled in functions. By default, 'make install' will place the symlink
30forest into `pwd`/_install unless you have defined the PREFIX environment
Eric Andersen8ec10a92001-01-27 09:33:39 +000031variable (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install')
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +000032
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 Andersen8a9b2c62001-04-06 22:02:49 +000039 functionality is currently limited to x86, ARM, SH3/4, powerpc, and MIPS.
Mark Whitley3654ca52001-01-26 20:58:23 +000040
41Supported libcs:
42
43 glibc-2.0.x, glibc-2.1.x, Linux-libc5, uClibc. People are looking at
44 newlib and diet-libc, but consider them unsupported, untested, or worse.
45
46Supported kernels:
47
48 Full functionality requires Linux 2.0.x, 2.2.x, or 2.4.x. A large fraction
49 of the code should run on just about anything.
50
51----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000052
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000053Getting help:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000054
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000055When you find you need help, you can check out the BusyBox mailing list
56archives at http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/ or even join
57the mailing list if you are interested.
58
59----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000060
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000061Bugs:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000062
63If you find bugs, please submit a bug report. Full instructions on how to
64report a bug are found at http://bugs.lineo.com/Reporting.html.
65
66For the impatient: To submit a bug, simply send an email describing the problem
67to submit@bugs.lineo.com. Bug reports should look something like this:
68
69 To: submit@bugs.lineo.com
70 From: diligent@testing.linux.org
71 Subject: /bin/true doesn't work
72
73 Package: busybox
Eric Andersen09580932001-04-10 20:10:55 +000074 Version: 0.51
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000075
76 When I invoke '/bin/true' it doesn't work. I expected it to return
77 a "0" but it returned a "1" instead. Here is the transcript:
78 $ /bin/true ; echo $?
79 1
80 With GNU /bin/true, I get the following output:
81 $ /bin/true ; echo $?
82 0
83 I am using Debian 2.2r2, kernel version 2.2.18, and the latest
84 uClibc from CVS. Thanks for the wonderful program!
85 -Diligent
86
87Note the careful description and use of examples showing not only what BusyBox
88does, but also a counter example showing what an equivalent GNU app does. Bug
89reports lacking such detail may take a _long_ time to be fixed... Thanks for
90understanding.
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000091
92----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000093
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000094FTP:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +000095
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +000096Source for the latest released version can always be downloaded from
97 ftp://ftp.lineo.com/pub/busybox.
98
99----------------
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +0000100
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000101CVS:
Eric Andersen235f66d2000-12-13 18:07:38 +0000102
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +0000103BusyBox now has its own publicly browsable CVS tree at:
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000104 http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/
105
106Anonymous CVS access is available. For instructions, check out:
107 http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html
108
109For those that are actively contributing there is even CVS write access:
110 http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html
111
Eric Andersena29dec22000-06-22 00:19:33 +0000112----------------
113
Eric Andersended62591999-11-18 00:19:26 +0000114Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to:
115 Erik Andersen
116 <andersen@lineo.com>
Eric Andersen664584b1999-12-11 23:25:59 +0000117 <andersee@debian.org>
Eric Andersen09580932001-04-10 20:10:55 +0000118 <andersee@codepoet.org>
Eric Andersencc8ed391999-10-05 16:24:54 +0000119
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +0000120<blatant plug>
Eric Andersen84b00921999-12-11 04:16:51 +0000121Many thanks to go to Lineo for paying me to work on busybox.
Eric Andersen07309432000-11-29 22:12:19 +0000122</blatant plug>
Eric Andersen84b00921999-12-11 04:16:51 +0000123