BusyBox - ArchWiki

# BusyBox

Warning: Do not expect full drop-in replacement and compatibility. Certain utilities may not exist and for those that do, there may be missing options. One purpose of this Wiki is to document missing features and the problems they cause (in order to device work-arounds). Make sure that the replacement(s) that you install fill your needs before proceeding.

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: Last proper update was from 2011, so especially the "missing" sections should be checked (Discuss)

## Installation

Install busybox from the official repositories.

Busybox commands are symbolic links to `/usr/bin/busybox` and thus take very little space. This is especially interesting for low-footprint systems. Several packages in the AUR replace the GNU utilities with these symbolic links.

## init

Minirc provides an init script compatible to busybox-init. See init for details.

## coreutils

busybox-coreutils is the busybox equivalent to GNU coreutils. Some commands lack options present in the corresponding coreutils binaries.

Space gain: 13.1 MB installed (coreutils)

### Missing functionality

    dircolors chcon csplit factor fmt join nl nproc paste pinky pr ptx runcon shuf stdbuf timeout truncate tsort users

### Missing utilities mapped to corresponding Busybox functions or ash script files

    dir --> ls
    shred --> rm
    vdir --> ls

    link --> ln
    unlink --> rm
    sha224sum --> script: perl-digest-sha
    sha256sum --> script: perl-digest-sha
    sha384sum --> script: perl-digest-sha
    sha512sum --> script: perl-digest-sha

### Missing features that cause problems

    readlink: missing option [-e, -m, -q or -s]

## util-linux

busybox-util-linux is the busybox equivalent to GNU util-linux.

Space gain: 7.5 MB installed (util-linux)

### Missing utilities

    arch findmnt lsblk agetty blkid cfdisk ctrlaltdel findfs fsck.cramfs fsfreeze fstrim mkfs mkfs.bfs mkfs.cramfs raw sfdisk swaplabel wipefs

    chkdupexe col colcrt colrm column cytune ddate fallocate i386 ionice ipcmk isosize line look lscpu mcookie namei pg rename scriptreplay setterm tailf taskset ul unshare uuidgen whereis write x86_64

    addpart delpart ldattach partx tunelp uuidd

## findutils

busybox-findutils is the busybox equivalent to GNU findutils.

### Missing utilities

    oldfind

## diffutils

busybox-diffutils from the AUR offers functionality corresponding to the binaries found in GNU diffutils.

Space gain: 1.4 MB installed (diffutils)

### Missing utilities

    diff3 sdiff

Category:

- System administration