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authorRob Landley <rob@landley.net>2005-10-09 18:20:54 +0000
committerRob Landley <rob@landley.net>2005-10-09 18:20:54 +0000
commitd27d3be6cdf177b8b75e5159f246a87a41b7276a (patch)
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parent61e45dbb2f55dfcebf874c6ec3d41f50b284590f (diff)
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The readme in 1.0 is more up to date than the 1.1 version...
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1Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage. 1Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.
2Please refer to the INSTALL file for instructions on how to build.
3
4BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
5small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
6you usually find in GNU coreutils, util-linux, etc. The utilities in BusyBox
7generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the
8options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very
9much like their GNU counterparts.
10
11BusyBox 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
14systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a Linux kernel.
15BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or embedded
16system.
17
18BusyBox is extremely configurable. This allows you to include only the
19components you need, thereby reducing binary size. See the file INSTALL
20for details.
21 2
22---------------- 3What is busybox:
23 4
24Supported architectures: 5 BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
6 small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the
7 utilities you usually find in bzip2, coreutils, file, findutils, gawk, grep,
8 inetutils, modutils, net-tools, procps, sed, shadow, sysklogd, sysvinit, tar,
9 util-linux, and vim. The utilities in BusyBox often have fewer options than
10 their full-featured cousins; however, the options that are included provide
11 the expected functionality and behave very much like their larger
12 counterparts.
13
14 BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in
15 mind, both to produce small binaries and to reduce run-time memory usage.
16 Busybox is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude
17 commands (or features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize
18 embedded systems; to create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a
19 Linux kernel. Busybox (usually together with uClibc) has also been used as
20 a component of "thin client" desktop systems, live-CD distributions, rescue
21 disks, installers, and so on.
22
23 BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small system,
24 both embedded environments and more full featured systems concerned about
25 space. Busybox is slowly working towards implementing the full Single Unix
26 Specification V3 (http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/), but isn't
27 there yet (and for size reasons will probably support at most UTF-8 for
28 internationalization). We are also interested in passing the Linux Test
29 Project (http://ltp.sourceforge.net).
25 30
26 BusyBox in general will build on any architecture supported by gcc. 31----------------
27 Kernel module loading for 2.2 and 2.4 Linux kernels is currently
28 limited to ARM, CRIS, H8/300, x86, ia64, x86_64, m68k, MIPS, PowerPC,
29 S390, SH3/4/5, Sparc, v850e, and x86_64 for 2.4.x kernels. For 2.6.x
30 kernels, kernel module loading support should work on all architectures.
31 32
33Using busybox:
32 34
33Supported C Libraries: 35 BusyBox is extremely configurable. This allows you to include only the
36 components and options you need, thereby reducing binary size. Run 'make
37 config' or 'make menuconfig' to select the functionality that you wish to
38 enable. (See 'make help' for more commands.)
34 39
35 uClibc and glibc are supported. People have been looking at newlib and 40 The behavior of busybox is determined by the name it's called under: as
36 dietlibc, but they are currently considered unsupported, untested, or 41 "cp" it behaves like cp, as "sed" it behaves like sed, and so on. Called
37 worse. Linux-libc5 is no longer supported -- you should probably use uClibc 42 as "busybox" it takes the second argument as the name of the applet to
38 instead if you want a small C library. 43 run (I.E. "./busybox ls -l /proc").
39 44
40Supported kernels: 45 The "standalone shell" mode is an easy way to try out busybox; this is a
46 command shell that calls the builtin applets without needing them to be
47 installed in the path. (Note that this requires /proc to be mounted, if
48 testing from a boot floppy or in a chroot environment.)
41 49
42 Full functionality requires Linux 2.2.x or better. A large fraction of the 50 The build automatically generates a file "busybox.links", which is used by
43 code should run on just about anything. While the current code is fairly 51 'make install' to create symlinks to the BusyBox binary for all compiled in
44 Linux specific, it should be fairly easy to port the majority of the code 52 commands. Use the PREFIX environment variable to specify where to install
45 to support, say, FreeBSD or Solaris, or Mac OS X, or even Windows (if you 53 the busybox binary and symlink forest. (i.e., 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install',
46 are into that sort of thing). 54 or 'make PREFIX=/tmp/foo install-hardlinks' if you prefer hard links.)
47 55
48---------------- 56----------------
49 57
50Getting help: 58Downloading the current source code:
51 59
52When you find you need help, you can check out the BusyBox mailing list 60 Source for the latest released version, as well as daily snapshots, can always
53archives at http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/ or even join 61 be downloaded from
54the mailing list if you are interested.
55 62
56---------------- 63 http://busybox.net/downloads/
57 64
58Bugs: 65 You can browse the up to the minute source code and change history online.
66 The "stable" series is at:
59 67
60If you find bugs, please submit a detailed bug report to the BusyBox mailing 68 http://www.busybox.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/branches/busybox_1_00_stable/busybox/
61list at busybox@mail.busybox.net. A well-written bug report should include a
62transcript of a shell session that demonstrates the bad behavior and enables
63anyone else to duplicate the bug on their own machine. The following is such
64an example:
65 69
66 To: busybox@mail.busybox.net 70 And the development series is at:
67 From: diligent@testing.linux.org
68 Subject: /bin/date doesn't work
69 71
70 Package: BusyBox 72 http://www.busybox.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/trunk/busybox/
71 Version: 1.00
72 73
73 When I execute BusyBox 'date' it produces unexpected results. 74 Anonymous SVN access is available. For instructions, check out:
74 With GNU date I get the following output:
75 75
76 $ date 76 http://busybox.net/subversion.html
77 Fri Oct 8 14:19:41 MDT 2004
78 77
79 But when I use BusyBox date I get this instead: 78 For those that are actively contributing and would like to check files in,
79 see:
80 80
81 $ date 81 http://busybox.net/developer.html
82 illegal instruction
83 82
84 I am using Debian unstable, kernel version 2.4.25-vrs2 on a Netwinder, 83 The developers also have a bug and patch tracking system
85 and the latest uClibc from CVS. Thanks for the wonderful program! 84 (http://bugs.busybox.net) although posting a bug/patch to the mailing list
85 is generally a faster way of getting it fixed, and the complete archive of
86 what happened is the subversion changelog.
86 87
87 -Diligent 88----------------
88 89
89Note the careful description and use of examples showing not only what BusyBox 90getting help:
90does, but also a counter example showing what an equivalent GNU app does. Bug 91
91reports lacking such detail may never be fixed... Thanks for understanding. 92 when you find you need help, you can check out the busybox mailing list
93 archives at http://busybox.net/lists/busybox/ or even join
94 the mailing list if you are interested.
92 95
93---------------- 96----------------
94 97
95Downloads: 98bugs:
96 99
97Source for the latest released version, as well as daily snapshots, can always 100 if you find bugs, please submit a detailed bug report to the busybox mailing
98be downloaded from 101 list at busybox@busybox.net. a well-written bug report should include a
99 http://busybox.net/downloads/ 102 transcript of a shell session that demonstrates the bad behavior and enables
103 anyone else to duplicate the bug on their own machine. the following is such
104 an example:
100 105
101---------------- 106 to: busybox@busybox.net
107 from: diligent@testing.linux.org
108 subject: /bin/date doesn't work
102 109
103CVS: 110 package: busybox
111 version: 1.00
104 112
105BusyBox now has its own publicly browsable SVN tree at: 113 when i execute busybox 'date' it produces unexpected results.
106 http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/trunk/busybox/ 114 with gnu date i get the following output:
107 115
108Anonymous SVN access is available. For instructions, check out: 116 $ date
109 http://busybox.net/subversion.html 117 fri oct 8 14:19:41 mdt 2004
110 118
111For those that are actively contributing there is even SVN write access: 119 but when i use busybox date i get this instead:
112 http://busybox.net/developer.html 120
121 $ date
122 illegal instruction
123
124 i am using debian unstable, kernel version 2.4.25-vrs2 on a netwinder,
125 and the latest uclibc from cvs. thanks for the wonderful program!
126
127 -diligent
128
129 note the careful description and use of examples showing not only what
130 busybox does, but also a counter example showing what an equivalent app
131 does (or pointing to the text of a relevant standard). Bug reports lacking
132 such detail may never be fixed... Thanks for understanding.
133
134----------------
135
136Portability:
137
138 Busybox is developed and tested on Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, compiled
139 with gcc (the unit-at-a-time optimizations in version 3.4 and later are
140 worth upgrading to get, but older versions should work), and linked against
141 uClibc (0.9.27 or greater) or glibc (2.2 or greater). In such an
142 environment, the full set of busybox features should work, and if
143 anything doesn't we want to know about it so we can fix it.
144
145 There are many other environments out there, in which busybox may build
146 and run just fine. We just don't test them. Since busybox consists of a
147 large number of more or less independent applets, portability is a question
148 of which features work where. Some busybox applets (such as cat and rm) are
149 highly portable and likely to work just about anywhere, while others (such as
150 insmod and losetup) require recent Linux kernels with recent C libraries.
151
152 Earlier versions of Linux and glibc may or may not work, for any given
153 configuration. Linux 2.2 or earlier should mostly work (there's still
154 some support code in things like mount.c) but this is no longer regularly
155 tested, and inherently won't support certain features (such as long files
156 and --bind mounts). The same is true for glibc 2.0 and 2.1: expect a higher
157 testing and debugging burden using such old infrastructure. (The busybox
158 developers are not very interested in supporting these older versions, but
159 will probably accept small self-contained patches to fix simple problems.)
160
161 Some environments are not recommended. Early versions of uClibc were buggy
162 and missing many features: upgrade. Linking against libc5 or dietlibc is
163 not supported and not interesting to the busybox developers. (The first is
164 obsolete and has no known size or feature advantages over uClibc, the second
165 has known bugs that its developers have actively refused to fix.) Ancient
166 Linux kernels (2.0.x and earlier) are similarly uninteresting.
167
168 In theory it's possible to use Busybox under other operating systems (such as
169 MacOS X, Solaris, Cygwin, or the BSD Fork Du Jour). This generally involves
170 a different kernel and a different C library at the same time. While it
171 should be possible to port the majority of the code to work in one of
172 these environments, don't be suprised if it doesn't work out of the box. If
173 you're into that sort of thing, start small (selecting just a few applets)
174 and work your way up.
175
176 Shaun Jackman has recently (2005) ported busybox to a combination of newlib
177 and libgloss, and some of his patches have been integrated. This platform
178 may join glibc/uclibc and Linux as a supported combination with the 1.1
179 release, but is not supported in 1.0.
180
181Supported hardware:
182
183 BusyBox in general will build on any architecture supported by gcc. We
184 support both 32 and 64 bit platforms, and both big and little endian
185 systems.
186
187 Under 2.4 Linux kernels, kernel module loading was implemented in a
188 platform-specific manner. Busybox's insmod utility has been reported to
189 work under ARM, CRIS, H8/300, x86, ia64, x86_64, m68k, MIPS, PowerPC, S390,
190 SH3/4/5, Sparc, v850e, and x86_64. Anything else probably won't work.
191
192 The module loading mechanism for the 2.6 kernel is much more generic, and
193 we believe 2.6.x kernel module loading support should work on all
194 architectures supported by the kernel.
113 195
114---------------- 196----------------
115 197
116Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to: 198Please feed suggestions, bug reports, insults, and bribes back to the busybox
199maintainer:
117 Erik Andersen 200 Erik Andersen
118 <andersen@codepoet.org> 201 <andersen@codepoet.org>
119
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