Re: I hate busybox!

[Mike Looijmans <mike.looijmans@topic.nl>]

On 16-09-15 18:43, Paul D. DeRocco wrote:
>> From: Mike Looijmans
>>
>> "Embedded" in my world is not about RAM or disk size. It's about
>> building a device that has a set task in life, and nothing is as
>> important as that one task. Whether that's running on an i7
>> or an M3 is irrelevant.
>>
>> For a system to acquire and process sensor data, record your
>> favorite TV
>> shows, or guide a missile, there's no need for a full fledged
>> bash shell
>> interpreter. It just needs a bit of plumbing to get the
>> application up
>> and running, and that's about it.
>>
>> Busybox is for systems like that. For these systems, anything more is
>> overkill, and will waste resources and increase the boot time.
>
> If you've got a 1GB eSSD drive, because that's the smallest you can buy,
> having a 382MB image rather than a 346MB image isn't a waste of anything.

To me it looks like a waste of 36 MB that could have been used for storing 
useful data.

For many projects, 36MB is more than I have for the whole root filesystem. 
Usually I get between 8 and 32 MB for the whole system (bootloader, kernel, 
rootfs and user data storage).

> How much boot time increase do you think you'll get from full-featured
> command line tools? I'd be surprised if it was noticeable to anyone.

My current boot time is about 4 seconds. The SD memory on this board reads at 
roughly 20MB/s, so each MB that I need to read at boot will cost me 50ms 
extra. That is most certainly measurable. The NAND flash reads at 10MB/s, so 
that'll be 100ms per megabyte.


As I said before, you and I live in different worlds. From where I'm standing, 
your system is the exception, not the rule.