BusyBox
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| Maintainer | Denys Vlasenko |
| developer | Bruce Perens , Erik Andersen, Rob Landley, Denys Vlasenko and others |
| Publishing year | November 4, 1999 |
| Current version | 1.31.1 (October 25, 2019) |
| operating system | Linux |
| programming language | C. |
| category | Embedded Linux |
| License | GPLv2 ( Free Software ) |
| German speaking | No |
| busybox.net | |
BusyBox is a computer program that combines various basic standard Unix utility programs into a single program. It runs on various POSIX environments such as Linux , Android or FreeBSD . However, many tools are designed to work with the interfaces of a Linux kernel . BusyBox was created to work on embedded operating systems with very limited resources.
According to the project website, BusyBox is the "Swiss Army Knife for embedded Linux". To need even less space, BusyBox is often about small libraries such as uClibc linked .
history
BusyBox was written by Bruce Perens in 1996 . He wanted to have a complete and bootable Linux system that would fit on a single floppy disk and that could be used both as a rescue system and for installing a Debian system. Until 1998 it was maintained by Enrique Zanardi and adapted to the needs of the Debian installation program. Then Dave Cinege expanded it for the "Linux Router Project". Between 1999 and 2006 it was in the hands of Erik Andersen and it spread to the growing embedded systems market. The maintainer has been Denys Vlasenko since 2006.
Lawsuits have been filed against many well-known manufacturers who use BusyBox on their devices since December 2009 because, according to the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), the GPL was violated or completely ignored.
application areas
Thanks to its advantages for these systems, it is used, for example, in Linux systems on the Sharp Zaurus , the Nokia 770 , the Nokia N900 , the Motorola ROKR Z6 , on OpenWrt- based systems such as the Fon router La Fonera , on AVM- Fritz! Boxes , TomTom navigation devices, on rooted Android images, Dreambox receivers, Screenplay multimedia hard drives from IOMEGA, the Acme Systems Foxboard, almost all Linux installation CDs (e.g. Ubuntu, Debian) or the GP2X . But it is also used in household appliances such as the Thermomix the company Vorwerk use. It is free software and is subject to the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2).
In addition to its use in embedded systems, BusyBox is also used for initramfs to start operating systems and as a rescue program. Are z. If, for example, important system commands such as / bin / env are deleted, they can be temporarily replaced by a symlink to or a copy of BusyBox in order to then reinstall the affected package (in this case binutils) with the system that is now working again. A statically linked build of BusyBox is particularly interesting here, as the system can be loaded even if glibc is destroyed and, with the appropriate configuration, starts the Almquist shell integrated in BusyBox.
Web links
- Official website (English)
- busybox-w32 is a port from BusyBox to the Microsoft Windows operating system using the Win32 API.
- A BusyBox introduction (English, refers to version 0.45)
- A BusyBox application example (English, refers to version 0.45)
- A BusyBox application example part 2 (English, refers to version 0.45)
- A BusyBox application example part 3 (English, refers to version 0.45)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Denys Vlasenko , BusyBox Maintainer
- ↑ Erik Andersen's website
- ↑ Current Projects , Rob Landley's website
- ↑ BusyBox Announcements. Retrieved November 18, 2019 .
- ↑ The busybox Open Source Project on Open Hub: Languages Page . In: Open Hub . (accessed on July 14, 2018).