1 <html><head><title>What is toybox?</title> 2 <!--#include file="header.html" --> 3 4 <h2><a name="what" />What is toybox?</h2> 5 6 <p>Toybox combines the most common Linux command line utilities together into 7 a single <a href=license.html>BSD-licensed</a> executable. It's simple, small, fast, and reasonably 8 standards-compliant (<a href=http://opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799>POSIX-2008</a> and <a href=http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_4.1.0>LSB 4.1</a>).</p> 9 10 <p>Toybox's 1.0 release goal is to turn generic Android into a 11 development environment capable of compiling <a href=http://www.linuxfromscratch.org>Linux From Scratch</a>. 12 A tiny system <a href=/aboriginal>built from</a> just toybox, linux, <a href=http://musl-libc.org>a C library</a>, and a C compiler (such as LLVM or 13 gcc 4.2.1+binutils 2.17) should be 14 able to rebuild itself from source code without needing any other packages.</p> 15 16 <b><h2><a name="status" />What commands are implemented in toybox?</h2></b> 17 18 <p>The current list of commands implemented by toybox is on the 19 <a href=status.html>status page</a>, which is updated each release. 20 There is also <a href=roadmap.html>roadmap</a> listing all planned commands for the 21 1.0 release.</p> 22 23 <p>In general, configuring toybox for "defconfig" enables all the commands 24 compete enough to be useful. Configuring "allyesconfig" enables partially 25 implemented commands as well, along with debugging features.</p> 26 27 <p>Several toybox commands can do things other vesions can't. For example 28 the toybox "df" isn't confused by initramfs the way other df implementations 29 are. (If initramfs is visible, df shows it like any other mount point.)</p> 30 31 <b><h3>Command Shell</h3></b> 32 <p>The toybox shell (toysh) aims to be a reasonable bash replacement. It 33 implements the "sh" and "toysh" commands, plus the built-in commands "cd" and 34 "exit". This is the largest single sub-project in toybox.</p> 35 36 <p>The following additional commands may be built into the shell (but not as 37 separate executables): cd, exit, if, while, for, function, fg, bg, jobs, source, 38 <a href="http://opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/alias.html">alias</a>, 39 export, set, unset, read, trap, and exec. (Note: not done yet.)</p> 40 41 </ul> 42 43 <h2><a name="commands" />Which commands are planned?</h2> 44 45 <p>The toybox <a href=todo.txt>todo list</a> mentions many potential commands 46 which may be added to this project. (Whether that file is readable by anybody 47 but the project's maintainer is open to debate.) The roadmap wiki in the 48 nav bar has a more human readable version.</p> 49 50 <p>The criteria for a toybox 1.0 release is that a system built from just the 51 Linux kernel, toybox, C library (such as uClibc), and a compiler (such as 52 tinycc) can rebuild itself from source code.</p> 53 54 <b><h3>Relevant Standards</h3></b> 55 56 <p>Most commands are implemented according to 57 <a href=http://opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/idx/utilities.html>The 58 Single Unix Specification version 4</a> where applicable. This does not mean 59 that toybox is implementing every SUSv4 utility: some such as SCCS and ed are 60 obsolete, while others such as c99 are outside the scope of the project. 61 Toybox also isn't implementing full internationalization support: it should be 62 8-bit clean and handle UTF-8, but otherwise we leave this to X11 and higher 63 layers. And some things (like $CDPATH support in "cd") await a good 64 explanation of why to bother with them. (The standard provides an important 65 frame of reference, but is not infallable set of commandments to be blindly 66 obeyed.)</p> 67 68 <p>The other major sources of commands are the Linux man pages, and testing 69 the behavior of existing commands (although not generally looking at their 70 source code), including the commands in Android's toolbox. SUSv4 does not 71 include many basic commands such as "mount", "init", and "mke2fs", which are 72 kind of nice to have.</p> 73 74 <b><h2><a name="downloads" />Download</h2></b> 75 76 <p>This project is maintained as a <a href=https://github.com/landley/toybox>git 77 archive</a>, and also offers <a href=http://landley.net/toybox/downloads>source 78 tarballs</a> and <a href=http://landley.net/toybox/bin>static binaries</a> 79 of the release versions.</p> 80 81 <p>The maintainer's <a href=/notes.html>development log</a> and the project's 82 <a href=http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net>mailing 83 list</a> are also good ways to track what's going on with the project.</p> 84 85 <b><h2><a name="why" />Why is toybox?</h2></b> 86 87 <p>The <a href=http://landley.net/talks/celf-2015.txt>2015 toybox talk</a> 88 starts with links to three previous talks on the history and motivation of 89 the project: "Why Toybox", "Why Public Domain", and "Why did I do 90 Aboriginal Linux (which led me here)?".</p> 91 92 <b><h2><a name="toycans" />What's the toybox logo image?</h2></b> 93 94 <p>It's <a href=toycans-big.jpg>carefully stacked soda cans</a>. Specifically, 95 it's a bunch of the original "Coke Zero" and "Pepsi One" cans, circa 2006, 96 stacked to spell out the binary values of the ascii string "Toybox", with 97 null terminator at the bottom. (The big picture's on it's side because 98 the camera was held sideways to get a better shot.)</p> 99 100 <p>No, it's not photoshopped, I actually had these cans until a coworker 101 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, 102 thinking they were recycling. (I still have two of each kind, but 103 Pepsi One seems discontinued and Coke Zero switched its can color 104 from black to grey, presumably in celebration. It was fun while it lasted...)</p> 105 106 <!--#include file="footer.html" --> 107
