1 Toybox: all-in-one Linux command line. 2 3 --- Getting started 4 5 You can download static binaries for various targets from: 6 7 http://landley.net/toybox/bin 8 9 The special name "." indicates the current directory (just like ".." means 10 the parent directory), and you can run a program that isn't in the $PATH by 11 specifying a path to it, so this should work: 12 13 wget http://landley.net/bin/toybox-x86_64 14 chmod +x toybox-x86_64 15 ./toybox-x86_64 echo hello world 16 17 --- Building toybox 18 19 Type "make help" for build instructions. 20 21 Usually you want something like: 22 23 make defconfig 24 LDFLAGS="--static" CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l- make toybox 25 PREFIX=/path/to/root/filesystem make install 26 27 The CROSS_COMPILE argument is optional, and without it builds a version of 28 toybox to run on the current machine. Cross compiling requires an appropriately 29 prefixed cross compiler toolchain, several example toolchains are available at: 30 31 http;//landley.net/aboriginal/bin 32 33 For the "CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l-" example above, download 34 cross-compiler-armv5l.tar.bz2, extract it, and add its "bin" subdirectory to 35 your $PATH. (And yes, the trailing - is significant, because the prefix 36 includes a dash.) 37 38 For more about cross compiling, see: 39 40 http://landley.net/writing/docs/cross-compiling.html 41 http://landley.net/aboriginal/architectures.html 42 43 --- Using toybox 44 45 The toybox build produces a multicall binary, a "swiss-army-knife" program 46 that acts differently depending on the name it was called by (cp, mv, cat...). 47 Installing toybox adds symlinks for each command name to the $PATH. 48 49 The special "toybox" command treats its first argument as the command to run. 50 With no arguments, it lists available commands. This allows you to use toybox 51 without installing it. This is the only command that can have an arbitrary 52 suffix (hence "toybox-armv5l"). 53 54 The "help" command provides information about each command (ala "help cat"). 55 56 --- Configuring toybox 57 58 It works like the Linux kernel: allnoconfig, defconfig, and menuconfig edit 59 a ".config" file that selects which features to include in the resulting 60 binary. 61 62 The maximum sane configuration is "make defconfig": allyesconfig isn't 63 recommended for toybox because it enables unfinished commands and debug code. 64 65 --- Creating a Toybox-based Linux system 66 67 Toybox is not a complete operating system, it's a program that runs under 68 an operating system. Booting a simple system to a shell prompt requires 69 three packages: an operating system kernel (Linux) to drive the hardware, 70 a program for the system to run (toybox), and a C library to tie them 71 together (toybox has been tested with musl, uClibc, glibc, and bionic). 72 73 The C library is part of a "toolchain", which is an integrated suite 74 of compiler, assembler, and linker, plus the standard headers and libraries 75 necessary to build C programs. 76 77 Static linking (with the --static option) copies the shared library contents 78 into the program, resulting in larger but more portable programs, which 79 can run even if they're the only file in the filesystem. Otherwise, 80 the "dynamically" linked programs require the library files to be present on 81 the target system ("man ldd" and "man ld.so" for details). 82 83 An example toybox-based system is Aboriginal Linux: 84 85 http://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html 86 87 That's designed to run under qemu, emulating several different hardware 88 architectures (x86, x86-64, arm, mips, sparc, powerpc, sh4). Each toybox 89 release is regression tested by building Linux From Scratch under this 90 toybox-based system on each supported architecture, using QEMU to emulate 91 big and little endian systems with different word size and alignment 92 requirements. 93 94 --- Presentations 95 96 1) "Why Toybox?" 2013 talk here at CELF 97 98 video: http://youtu.be/SGmtP5Lg_t0 99 outline: http://landley.net/talks/celf-2013.txt 100 linked from http://landley.net/toybox/ in nav bar on left as "Why is it?" 101 - march 21, 2013 entry has section links. 102 103 2) "Why Public Domain?" The rise and fall of copyleft, Ohio LinuxFest 2013 104 105 audio: https://archive.org/download/OhioLinuxfest2013/24-Rob_Landley-The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Copyleft.mp3 106 outline: http://landley.net/talks/ohio-2013.txt 107 108 3) Why did I do Aboriginal Linux (which led me here) 109 110 260 slide presentation: 111 https://speakerdeck.com/landley/developing-for-non-x86-targets-using-qemu 112 113 How and why to make android self-hosting: 114 http://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html#selfhost 115 116 4) What's new with toybox (ELC 2015 status update): 117 118 video: http://elinux.org/ELC_2015_Presentations 119 outline: http://landley.net/talks/celf-2015.txt 120
