[BusyBox] Re: Busybox

Erik Andersen andersen at lineo.com
Mon Jun 19 20:21:35 UTC 2000


On Mon Jun 19, 2000 at 10:52:45AM -0600, Erik Andersen wrote:
> On Mon Jun 19, 2000 at 12:28:12PM +0200, Andrew Higgs wrote:
> > Hi Erik,
> > 
> > I am having a problem compiling Busybox (version 0.44) with libc 5 on a
> > slackware 3.9 box. I can compile just fine using libc6 but it is not a
> > very light weight library. Is there a way to use libc 5 or are there any
> > light weight library alternatives which I can use?
> > 
> > Thanks for the great program. Can I contribute in some way with
> > documentation or the likes (not a C programmer unfortunately)?
> > 
> 
> I am _very_ interested in gettin BusyBox to work with libc5, and I have been
> making some great efforts in that direction.  Unfortunately, it is not entirely
> there yet.  I have a libc5 cross compiler on my system (i.e. I run Debian, so I
> just did an 'apt-get install altgcc libc5-altdev' and then whenever I want to
> compile with gcc2.7.2.3+libc5 I just change my path -- very conveinient)

I had some time today, and so I got BusyBox working with libc5.  The only app
that doesn't work at the moment is md5sum (which can hardly be considered
critical).  For a minimalist system, such as would be used in an initrd to load
a binary only kernel module (think msystems disk on chip) where busybox is
compiled statically with only BB_INSMOD, BB_SH, BB_FEATURE_STANDALONE_SHELL,
and BB_FEATURE_INSMOD_NEW_KERNEL, this reduces binary size from 328k with GNU
libc to 188k linked vs libc5.  :-)

I have posted a newer snapshot to the ftp site (it will take about an hour 
till the mirror picks it up).  We are getting very close to the final 0.44
release, so please test this and let me know of any problems,

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen   email:  andersen at lineo.com
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--





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