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1<html><head><title>toybox: old news</title>
2<!--#include file="header.html" -->
3
4<h2>Old News</h2>
5
6<p>This project <a href=http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2006-September/024794.html>started in 2006</a>, got mothballed in 2009
7<a href=http://landley.net/notes-2009.html#18-06-2009>for</a>
8<a href=http://landley.net/notes-2011.html#31-03-2011>various</a>
9<a href=http://landley.net/notes-2011.html#08-06-2011>reasons</a>
10(during which time I
11<a href=http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-March/071783.html>contributed</a>
12some toybox code and design ideas to busybox</a> but retained the copyrights to
13my work), then <a href=http://landley.net/notes-2011.html#13-11-2011>relaunched</a>
14under a 2-clause BSD license in 2011.
15The following news entries predate that relaunch:</p>
16
17<hr>
18<p><b>December 1, 2009</b> - <a href=downloads/toybox-0.1.0.tar.bz2>toybox-0.1.0</a> is out.</p>
19
20<p>This release is a couple build fixes and another bugfix to patch.</p>
21
22<hr>
23<p><b>April 17, 2009</b> - Another bugfix release,
24<a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.9.2.tar.bz2>toybox-0.0.9.2</a>, off by one allocation error in patch.</p>
25
26<p>(Darn fiddly command, innit?)</p>
27
28<hr>
29<p><b>March 29, 2009</b> - Released
30<a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.9.1.tar.bz2>toybox 0.0.9.1</a> which is a bugfix
31release for issues with the patch command.</p>
32
33<p>The project is currently on hold while the developers learn Lua and
34decide whether or not to port the whole thing to that language.
35(Also note: the mailing list moved.  See the links on the left.  You'll
36have to resubscribe.)</p>
37
38<hr>
39<p><b>January 29, 2009</b> - Released
40<a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.9.tar.bz2>toybox 0.0.9.tar.bz2</a> which is a minor packaging
41fix for 0.0.8.  (The previous release tarball contained a prebuilt x86-64
42kconfig/conf file, because the release script ran defconfig to
43pregenerate help.h, and didn't run make clean afterwards.)  The actual source
44code is identical to the previous release.</p>
45
46<hr>
47<p><b>January 20, 2009</b> - <a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.8.tar.bz2>toybox 0.0.8</a>
48adds the uname, cksum, and mkswapfs commands.</p>
49
50<p>This uname implementation is cross compile friendly: when built as a 32 bit
51binary on an x86_64 host, it reports "i686" to confuse autoconf less.</p>
52
53<p>This cksum has several extra command line options which can be used to
54produce different cksum variants based on the same crc32 algorithm.  For
55example, the broadcom "trx" image packaging uses a little endian crc,
56pre-inverted instead of post-inverted, and does not include the length.
57(Without these arguments, it produces the normal SUSv4 cksum output.)</p>
58
59<p>It also upgrades netcat with a server mode (-l option) and fixes several
60netcat bugs.  It also fixed multiple bugs in "patch", works around a
61reiserfs bug in cp, and oneit can reboot on exit more reliably.</p>
62
63<p><b>November 12, 2008</b> -
64<a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.7.tar.bz2>toybox 0.0.7</a>
65adds sort and tee commands, upgrades the internal option parsing logic and the
66test suite, and numerous bugfixes (bunzip, chroot, cat, patch).</p>
67
68<p><b>May 26, 2008</b> - <a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.6.tar.bz2>toybox 0.0.6</a>
69adds cat, rmdir, and seq.  Bugfixes to cp and a new -v option.  Updates mdev to
70work with the 2.6.25 kernel.  Updates patch to knows that a file dated
711969-12-31 means it doesn't exist, and to fail if a file it needs to create
72already exists.  Command line option parsing can now handle things like "echo
73-nex" vs "echo -ne".  Several updates to the test suite (run scripts/test.sh),
74and some build fixes.</p>
75
76<p>
77<hr>
78<p><b>March 29, 2008</b> -
79Time to release <a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.5.tar.bz2>toybox 0.0.5</a>, with
80new commands cp and chvt and several bugfixes.</p>
81
82<p>More makefile targets: "make test" runs the test suite (which needs more test
83scripts), and make install/install_flat/uninstall/uninstall_flat calls
84make/install.sh (with options --long --symlink --force --uninstall depending
85on the context).</p>
86
87<p>Most of the work has been behind the scenes, namely a significant rewrite of
88the build logic so adding each new command consists of adding a single C file to
89the "toys" directory, eliminating the need to touch any other files.
90There are specially formatted comments at the top of the C file to generate
91the other files, see toys/hello.c for an example.  (See generated/README.txt
92and <a href=code.html>code.html</a> for details.)</p>
93
94<p><b>January 2, 2008</b> - And <a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.4.tar.bz2>toybox-0.0.4.tar.bz2</a> is out.
95The new applets this time around include basename, chroot, dirname, dmesg,
96help, mkfifo, netcat, patch, sha1sum, touch, and tty.</p>
97
98<p>Note that this "touch" includes -l to set the length, which can truncate
99a file or create a commpletely sparse file, good for filesystem images.</p>
100
101<p>Expect the next release in about 6 months.</p>
102
103<p><b>December 12, 2007</b> - Updated the list of implemented applications,
104put up a <a href=todo.txt>todo list</a> and <a href=code.html>infrastructure
105documentation</a>.  Expect another release towards the end of the month.</p>
106
107<p><b>June 18, 2007</b> - Put out
108<a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.3.tar.bz2>toybox-0.0.3.tar.bz2</a> since it's
109been too long since I did something like that.  This one implements
110catv, count, df, echo, false, oneit, pwd, sleep, sync, toysh, true, which,
111and yes (which is what "make defconfig" enables).  There are several other
112commands not enabled by defconfig, because they don't really work yet.</p>
113
114<p>Most of the general infrastructure's there now, although lots of tweaking
115and optimizing is still needed.  The test suite is skeletal and not entirely
116checked in yet, but I'm working on that.</p>
117
118<p>I don't have nearly as much time to work on this as I'd like, but I'm making
119a little progress.</p>
120
121<p><b>January 31, 2007</b> -
122Toybox <a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.2.tar.bz2>0.0.2 release</a>.
123Implements count, yes, pwd, echo, bzcat, catv, oneit, and an unfinished
124skeleton of mke2fs.  Adds argument parsing logic and bunzip code to library.
125Now configured with menuconfig.  Adds "make baseline" and "make bloatcheck"
126using Matt Mackall's bloat-o-meter, and scripts/showasm.</p>
127
128<p>Screwing up the web page a bit, adding an index bar along the side
129which doesn't properly connect up to anything yet.  (Busy implementing
130mke2fs and gene2fs.)</p>
131
132<p><b>October 30, 2006</b> -
133Toybox <a href=downloads/toybox-0.0.1.tar.bz2>0.0.1 release</a>.  Implements
134df, a skeletal toysh, and some library functions.  Proof of concept, really.</p>
135
136<p><b>September 7, 2006</b> -
137Project launched, first commit to mercurial archive.</p>
138
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