1Toybox: all-in-one Linux command line. 2 3--- Getting started 4 5You can download static binaries for various targets from: 6 7 http://landley.net/toybox/bin 8 9The special name "." indicates the current directory (just like ".." means 10the parent directory), and you can run a program that isn't in the $PATH by 11specifying a path to it, so this should work: 12 13 wget http://landley.net/toybox/bin/toybox-x86_64 14 chmod +x toybox-x86_64 15 ./toybox-x86_64 echo hello world 16 17--- Building toybox 18 19Type "make help" for build instructions. 20 21Toybox uses the "make menuconfig; make; make install" idiom same as 22the Linux kernel. Usually you want something like: 23 24 make defconfig 25 make 26 make install 27 28Or maybe: 29 30 LDFLAGS="--static" CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l- make defconfig toybox 31 PREFIX=/path/to/root/filesystem/bin make install_flat 32 33The file "configure" defines default values for many environment 34variables that control the toybox build; if you set a value for any of 35these, your value is used instead of the default in that file. 36 37The CROSS_COMPILE argument above is optional, the default builds a version of 38toybox to run on the current machine. Cross compiling requires an appropriately 39prefixed cross compiler toolchain, several example toolchains are available at: 40 41 http://landley.net/aboriginal/bin 42 43For the "CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l-" example above, download 44cross-compiler-armv5l.tar.bz2, extract it, and add its "bin" subdirectory to 45your $PATH. (And yes, the trailing - is significant, because the prefix 46includes a dash.) 47 48For more about cross compiling, see: 49 50 http://landley.net/writing/docs/cross-compiling.html 51 http://landley.net/aboriginal/architectures.html 52 53For a more thorough description of the toybox build process, see 54http://landley.net/toybox/code.html#building 55 56--- Using toybox 57 58The toybox build produces a multicall binary, a "swiss-army-knife" program 59that acts differently depending on the name it was called by (cp, mv, cat...). 60Installing toybox adds symlinks for each command name to the $PATH. 61 62The special "toybox" command treats its first argument as the command to run. 63With no arguments, it lists available commands. This allows you to use toybox 64without installing it. This is the only command that can have an arbitrary 65suffix (hence "toybox-armv5l"). 66 67The "help" command provides information about each command (ala "help cat"). 68 69--- Configuring toybox 70 71It works like the Linux kernel: allnoconfig, defconfig, and menuconfig edit 72a ".config" file that selects which features to include in the resulting 73binary. You can save and re-use your .config file, although may want to 74run "make oldconfig" to re-run the dependency resolver when migrating to 75new versions. 76 77The maximum sane configuration is "make defconfig": allyesconfig isn't 78recommended for toybox because it enables unfinished commands and debug code. 79 80--- Creating a Toybox-based Linux system 81 82Toybox is not a complete operating system, it's a program that runs under 83an operating system. Booting a simple system to a shell prompt requires 84three packages: an operating system kernel (Linux*) to drive the hardware, 85one or more programs for the system to run (toybox), and a C library ("libc") 86to tie them together (toybox has been tested with musl, uClibc, glibc, 87and bionic). 88 89The C library is part of a "toolchain", which is an integrated suite 90of compiler, assembler, and linker, plus the standard headers and libraries 91necessary to build C programs. (And miscellaneous binaries like nm and objdump.) 92 93Static linking (with the --static option) copies the shared library contents 94into the program, resulting in larger but more portable programs, which 95can run even if they're the only file in the filesystem. Otherwise, 96the "dynamically" linked programs require the library files to be present on 97the target system ("man ldd" and "man ld.so" for details). 98 99An example toybox-based system is Aboriginal Linux: 100 101 http://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html 102 103That's designed to run under qemu, emulating several different hardware 104architectures (x86, x86-64, arm, mips, sparc, powerpc, sh4). Each toybox 105release is regression tested by building Linux From Scratch under this 106toybox-based system on each supported architecture, using QEMU to emulate 107big and little endian systems with different word size and alignment 108requirements. (The eventual goal is to replace Linux From Scratch with 109the Android Open Source Project.) 110 111* Or something providing the same API such as FreeBSD's Linux emulation layer. 112 113--- Presentations 114 1151) "Why Toybox?" talk at the Embedded Linux Conference in 2013 116 117 video: http://youtu.be/SGmtP5Lg_t0 118 outline: http://landley.net/talks/celf-2013.txt 119 linked from http://landley.net/toybox/ in nav bar on left as "Why is it?" 120 - march 21, 2013 entry has section links. 121 1222) "Why Public Domain?" The rise and fall of copyleft, Ohio LinuxFest 2013 123 124 audio: https://archive.org/download/OhioLinuxfest2013/24-Rob_Landley-The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Copyleft.mp3 125 outline: http://landley.net/talks/ohio-2013.txt 126 1273) Why did I do Aboriginal Linux (which led me here) 128 129 260 slide presentation: 130 https://speakerdeck.com/landley/developing-for-non-x86-targets-using-qemu 131 132 How and why to make android self-hosting: 133 http://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html#selfhost 134 1354) What's new with toybox (ELC 2015 status update): 136 137 video: http://elinux.org/ELC_2015_Presentations 138 outline: http://landley.net/talks/celf-2015.txt 139 140--- Contributing 141 142The three important URLs for communicating with the toybox project are: 143 144 web page: http://landley.net/toybox 145 146 mailing list: http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net 147 148 git repo: http://github.com/landley/toybox 149 150The maintainer prefers patches be sent to the mailing list. If you use git, 151the easy thing to do is: 152 153 git format-patch -1 $HASH 154 155Then send a file attachment. The list holds messages from non-subscribers 156for moderation, but I usually get to them in a day or two. 157 158Although I do accept pull requests on github, I download the patches and 159apply them with "git am" (which avoids gratuitous merge commits). Closing 160the pull request is then the submitter's responsibility. 161 162If I haven't responded to your patch after one week, feel free to remind 163me of it. 164 165Android's policy for toybox patches is that non-build patches should go 166upstream first (into vanilla toybox, with discussion on the toybox mailing 167list) and then be pulled into android's toybox repo from there. (They 168generally resync on fridays). The exception is patches to their build scripts 169(Android.mk and the checked-in generated/* files) which go directly to AOSP. 170