Mercurial > hg > toybox
annotate www/about.html @ 385:bf7eea85f46c
More GPL->BSD debris.
author | Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> |
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date | Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:01:41 -0600 |
parents | 8f0b24cc7cd7 |
children | 3d87f15f4c60 |
rev | line source |
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8f0b24cc7cd7
Minor web page updates (put header/footer back, add a few <hr> tags).
Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
parents:
360
diff
changeset
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1 <!--#include file="header.html" --> |
8f0b24cc7cd7
Minor web page updates (put header/footer back, add a few <hr> tags).
Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
parents:
360
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changeset
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2 |
226 | 3 <h2><a name="what" />What is ToyBox?</h2> |
4 | |
5 <p>The goal of the Toybox project is to create simple implementations of all | |
6 the important Linux command line utilities. These implementations should | |
7 be small (the entire project should total less than a megabyte, uncompressed), | |
8 fast, simple, and correctly implemented (which is related to standards | |
9 compliance, but isn't quite the same thing). Click for | |
10 <a href="design.html">more about the design goals</a></p> | |
11 | |
12 <p>Toybox has configurable levels of functionality, and should scale from tiny | |
13 embedded systems up to full general purpose desktop and development | |
14 environments. The author plans to run it on his laptop, and the | |
15 <a href=/code/firmware>Firmware Linux</a> project is trying to get a complete | |
16 Linux system to rebuild itself from source code using toybox.</p> | |
17 | |
385 | 18 <p>Toybox is <a href=license.html>released under a simple 2-clause BSD-style |
19 license</a>.</p> | |
226 | 20 |
21 <p>Toybox can be built as a single "swiss army knife" executable (ala BusyBox | |
22 or Red Hat's Nash), or each command can be built as a traditional independent | |
23 executable.</p> | |
24 | |
25 <b><h2><a name="status" />What commands are implemented?</h2></b> | |
26 | |
27 <p>The current list of commands implemented by toybox is at the top of the | |
385 | 28 <a href=news.html>news page</a>. That list is updated when new commands |
226 | 29 go in.</p> |
30 | |
31 <p>In general, configuring toybox for "defconfig" enables all the commands | |
32 compete enough to be useful. Configuring "allyesconfig" enables partially | |
33 implemented commands as well.</p> | |
34 | |
35 <p>The following commands are incomplete, but demonstrate some basic | |
36 functionality: bzcat/bunzip2, help, mke2fs, sh/toysh, mdev.</p> | |
37 | |
38 <p>The following are partially implemented commands that don't actually do | |
39 anything yet: mke2fs.</p> | |
40 | |
230 | 41 <p>Several toybox commands can do things other vesions can't. For example:</p> |
42 | |
43 <p>The toybox "df" isn't confused by initramfs the way other df implementations | |
44 are. If initramfs is visible, df shows it like any other mount point.</p> | |
45 | |
46 <p>The toybox "touch" command has a -l option to set the length of a file. | |
47 This can truncate a file, or create completely sparse files.</p> | |
226 | 48 |
49 <b><h3>Command Shell</h3></b> | |
50 <p>The Toybox Shell (toysh) aims to be a reasonable bash replacement. It | |
51 implements the "sh" and "toysh" commands, plus the built-in commands "cd" and | |
52 "exit". This is the largest single sub-project in toybox.</p> | |
53 | |
54 <p>The following additional commands may be built into the shell (but not as | |
55 separate executables): cd, exit, if, while, for, function, fg, bg, jobs, source, | |
56 <a href="http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/alias.html">alias</a>, | |
57 export, set, unset, read, trap, and exec. (Note: not done yet.)</p> | |
58 | |
59 </ul> | |
60 | |
61 <h2><a name="commands" />Which commands are planned?</h2> | |
62 | |
63 <p>The toybox <a href=todo.txt>todo list</a> mentions many potential commands | |
64 which may be added to this project. (Whether that file is readable by anybody | |
65 but the project's maintainer is open to debate.)</p> | |
66 | |
67 <p>The criteria for a toybox 1.0 release is that a system built from just the | |
68 Linux kernel, toybox, uClibc, and a compiler (such as tinycc) can rebuild | |
69 itself from source code.</p> | |
70 | |
71 <b><h3>Relevant Standards</h3></b> | |
72 | |
73 <p>Most commands are implemented according to | |
74 <a href=http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/idx/utilities.html>The | |
75 Single Unix Specification version 3</a> where applicable. This does not mean | |
76 that Toybox is implementing every SUSv3 utility: some such as SCCS and ed are | |
77 obsolete, while others such as c99 are outside the scope of the project. | |
78 Toybox also isn't implementing full internationalization support: it should be | |
79 8-bit clean and handle UTF-8, but otherwise we leave this to X11 and higher | |
80 layers. And some things (like $CDPATH support in "cd") await a good | |
81 explanation of why to bother with them. (The standard provides an important | |
82 frame of reference, but is not infallable set of commandments to be blindly | |
83 obeyed.)</p> | |
84 | |
85 <p>The other major sources of commands are the Linux man pages, and testing | |
86 the behavior of existing commands (although not generally looking at their | |
87 source code). SUSv3 does not include many basic commands such as "mount", | |
88 "init", and "mke2fs", which are kind of nice to have.</p> | |
89 | |
90 <b><h2><a name="downloads" />Download</h2></b> | |
91 | |
92 <p>This project is maintained as a mercurial archive. To get a copy of the | |
93 current development version, either use mercurial (hg clone | |
94 http://landley.net/toybox) or click on one of the zip/gz/bz2 links | |
95 at the top of the <a href=/hg/toybox>mercurial archive browser</a> page to get | |
96 an archive of the appropriate version. Click | |
97 <a href="/hg/toybox?cmd=tags">tags</a> to see all the tagged release | |
98 versions ("tip" is the current development version).</p> | |
99 | |
100 <p>The maintainer's <a href=/notes.html>development log</a> and the project's | |
101 <a href=http://www2.them.com:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/toybox>mailing | |
102 list</a> are also good ways to track what's going on with the project.</p> | |
103 | |
360
f7780b485e6f
Remove header/footer includes to prepare for css instead.
Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
parents:
230
diff
changeset
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104 <b><h2><a name="toycans" />What's the toybox logo image?</h2></b> |
227 | 105 |
106 <p>It's <a href=toycans-big.jpg>carefully stacked soda cans</a>. Specifically, | |
107 it's a bunch of the original "Coke Zero" and "Pepsi One" cans, circa 2006, | |
228 | 108 stacked to spell out the binary values of the ascii string "Toybox", with |
109 null terminator at the bottom. (The big picture's on it's side because | |
110 the camera was held sideways to get a better shot.)</p> | |
111 | |
112 <p>No, it's not photoshopped, I actually had these cans until a coworker | |
113 who Totally Did Not Get It <sup><font size=-3><a href=http://www.timesys.com>tm</a></font></sup> threw them out one day after I'd gone home, | |
114 thinking they were recycling. (I still have two of each kind, but | |
115 Pepsi One seems discontinued and Coke Zero switched its can color | |
116 from black to grey, presumably in celebration. It was fun while it lasted...)</p> | |
365
8f0b24cc7cd7
Minor web page updates (put header/footer back, add a few <hr> tags).
Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
parents:
360
diff
changeset
|
117 |
8f0b24cc7cd7
Minor web page updates (put header/footer back, add a few <hr> tags).
Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
parents:
360
diff
changeset
|
118 <!--#include file="footer.html" --> |