4 ms·

What is this used for? I am interested in contributing

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
banachtarski 7y ago
Out of curiosity, how does one become interested in contributing to a thing when one doesn't even know what the thing is?
- ggm 7y ago
  The name has pointers to english-as-a-second-language. It could be they were seeking "what are you using this for" or "what are you targetting with this work" which goes to the higher purpose. General use of busybox is implied by what you know of /rescue and/or the small unix for containers work, but there are also tiny unixes for small computer systems, Pi based embedded systems, IoT, you name it (busybox is probably overkill for IoT devices but I could believe its part of the diagnostic)
- scarejunba 7y ago
  They understand the tool but not the plan. If they don't like the plan, they may c2rust it themselves and try a different angle.
- christiansakai 7y ago
  Fair point. It looks cool so I am interested. I am also a Rust beginner
- vinceguidry 7y ago
  He asked what it was used for, not what it does.
woodrowbarlow 7y ago
busybox provides coreutils, with a focus on being as stripped-down as possible. in other words, busybox provides binaries like cat, ls, nano, sudo, etc. (basically enough to be able to do shell scripting) for use in memory-constrained embedded linux systems like internet routers or in-vehicle infotainment systems.
- christiansakai 7y ago
  Gotcha. Might be out of my league
  - woodrowbarlow 7y ago
    don't discount it! can you write a program that opens a text file and dumps its contents on STDOUT? then you can write `cat`! and there are oodles of tools that are as simple as that. the nice thing about contributing to a busybox-like distribution of coreutils is that they intentionally leave out the bells and whistles, since the target systems are memory-constrained. and you can do the development and testing right on your workstation. busybox is designed to be suitable for embedded devices, but the tools will run on any device with a linux kernel, as long as you can compile for the target CPU.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Out of curiosity, how does one become interested in contributing to a thing when one doesn't even know what the thing is?

ggm 7y ago
The name has pointers to english-as-a-second-language. It could be they were seeking "what are you using this for" or "what are you targetting with this work" which goes to the higher purpose. General use of busybox is implied by what you know of /rescue and/or the small unix for containers work, but there are also tiny unixes for small computer systems, Pi based embedded systems, IoT, you name it (busybox is probably overkill for IoT devices but I could believe its part of the diagnostic)
scarejunba 7y ago
They understand the tool but not the plan. If they don't like the plan, they may c2rust it themselves and try a different angle.
christiansakai 7y ago
Fair point. It looks cool so I am interested. I am also a Rust beginner
vinceguidry 7y ago
He asked what it was used for, not what it does.

woodrowbarlow 7y ago

busybox provides coreutils, with a focus on being as stripped-down as possible. in other words, busybox provides binaries like cat, ls, nano, sudo, etc. (basically enough to be able to do shell scripting) for use in memory-constrained embedded linux systems like internet routers or in-vehicle infotainment systems.

christiansakai 7y ago
Gotcha. Might be out of my league
- woodrowbarlow 7y ago
  don't discount it! can you write a program that opens a text file and dumps its contents on STDOUT? then you can write `cat`! and there are oodles of tools that are as simple as that. the nice thing about contributing to a busybox-like distribution of coreutils is that they intentionally leave out the bells and whistles, since the target systems are memory-constrained. and you can do the development and testing right on your workstation. busybox is designed to be suitable for embedded devices, but the tools will run on any device with a linux kernel, as long as you can compile for the target CPU.