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- Toybox: all-in-one Linux command line.
- --- Getting started
- You can download static binaries for various targets from:
- http://landley.net/toybox/bin
- The special name "." indicates the current directory (just like ".." means
- the parent directory), and you can run a program that isn't in the $PATH by
- specifying a path to it, so this should work:
- wget http://landley.net/toybox/bin/toybox-x86_64
- chmod +x toybox-x86_64
- ./toybox-x86_64 echo hello world
- --- Building toybox
- Type "make help" for build instructions.
- Toybox uses the "make menuconfig; make; make install" idiom same as
- the Linux kernel. Usually you want something like:
- make defconfig
- make
- make install
- Or maybe:
- LDFLAGS="--static" CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l- make defconfig toybox
- PREFIX=/path/to/root/filesystem/bin make install_flat
- The file "configure" defines default values for many environment variables
- that control the toybox build; if you export any of these variables into your
- environment, your value is used instead of the default in that file.
- The CROSS_COMPILE argument above is optional, the default builds a version of
- toybox to run on the current machine. Cross compiling requires an appropriately
- prefixed cross compiler toolchain, several example toolchains (built using
- the file "scripts/mcm-buildall.sh" in the toybox source) are available at:
- https://mkroot.musl.cc/latest/
- For the "CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l-" example above, download
- cross-compiler-armv5l.tar.bz2, extract it, and add its "bin" subdirectory to
- your $PATH. (And yes, the trailing - is significant, because the prefix
- includes a dash.)
- For more about cross compiling, see:
- https://landley.net/toybox/faq.html#cross
- http://landley.net/writing/docs/cross-compiling.html
- http://landley.net/aboriginal/architectures.html
- For a more thorough description of the toybox build process, see:
- http://landley.net/toybox/code.html#building
- --- Using toybox
- The toybox build produces a multicall binary, a "swiss-army-knife" program
- that acts differently depending on the name it was called by (cp, mv, cat...).
- Installing toybox adds symlinks for each command name to the $PATH.
- The special "toybox" command treats its first argument as the command to run.
- With no arguments, it lists available commands. This allows you to use toybox
- without installing it, and is the only command that can have an arbitrary
- suffix (hence "toybox-armv5l").
- The "help" command provides information about each command (ala "help cat"),
- and "help toybox" provides general information about toybox.
- --- Configuring toybox
- It works like the Linux kernel: allnoconfig, defconfig, and menuconfig edit
- a ".config" file that selects which features to include in the resulting
- binary. You can save and re-use your .config file, but may want to
- run "make oldconfig" to re-run the dependency resolver when migrating to
- new versions.
- The maximum sane configuration is "make defconfig": allyesconfig isn't
- recommended as a starting point for toybox because it enables unfinished
- commands, debug code, and optional dependencies your build environment may
- not provide.
- --- Creating a Toybox-based Linux system
- Toybox has a built-in simple system builder (scripts/mkroot.sh) with a
- Makefile target:
- make root
- sudo chroot root/host/fs /init
- Type "exit" to get back out. If you install appropriate cross compilers and
- point it at Linux source code, it can build simple three-package systems
- that boot to a shell prompt under qemu:
- make root CROSS_COMPILE=sh4-linux-musl- LINUX=~/linux
- cd root/sh4
- ./qemu-sh4.sh
- By calling scripts/mkroot.sh directly you can add additional packages
- to the build, see scripts/root/dropbear as an example.
- The FAQ explains this in a lot more detail:
- https://landley.net/toybox/faq.html#system
- https://landley.net/toybox/faq.html#mkroot
- --- Presentations
- 1) "Why Toybox?" talk at the Embedded Linux Conference in 2013
- outline: http://landley.net/talks/celf-2013.txt
- video: http://youtu.be/SGmtP5Lg_t0
- The https://landley.net/toybox/about.html page has nav links breaking that
- talk down into sections.
- 2) "Why Public Domain?" The rise and fall of copyleft, Ohio LinuxFest 2013
- outline: http://landley.net/talks/ohio-2013.txt
- audio: https://archive.org/download/OhioLinuxfest2013/24-Rob_Landley-The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Copyleft.mp3
- 3) Why did I do Aboriginal Linux (which led me here)
- 260 slide presentation:
- https://speakerdeck.com/landley/developing-for-non-x86-targets-using-qemu
- How and why to make android self-hosting:
- http://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html#selfhost
- More backstory than strictly necessary:
- https://landley.net/aboriginal/history.html
- 4) What's new with toybox (ELC 2015 status update):
- video: http://elinux.org/ELC_2015_Presentations
- outline: http://landley.net/talks/celf-2015.txt
- 5) Toybox vs BusyBox (2019 ELC talk):
- outline: http://landley.net/talks/elc-2019.txt
- video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJkyMuBm3g
- --- Contributing
- The three important URLs for communicating with the toybox project are:
- web page: http://landley.net/toybox
- mailing list: http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net
- git repo: http://github.com/landley/toybox
- The maintainer prefers patches be sent to the mailing list. If you use git,
- the easy thing to do is:
- git format-patch -1 $HASH
- Then send a file attachment. The list holds messages from non-subscribers
- for moderation, but I usually get to them in a day or two.
- I download github pull requests as patches and apply them with "git am"
- (which avoids gratuitous merge commits). Sometimes I even remember to close
- the pull request.
- If I haven't responded to your patch after one week, feel free to remind
- me of it.
- Android's policy for toybox patches is that non-build patches should go
- upstream first (into vanilla toybox, with discussion on the toybox mailing
- list) and then be pulled into android's toybox repo from there. (They
- generally resync on fridays). The exception is patches to their build scripts
- (Android.mk and the checked-in generated/* files) which go directly to AOSP.
- (As for the other meaning of "contributing", https://patreon.com/landley is
- always welcome but I warn you up front I'm terrible about updating it.)
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