Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 10:02:42 -0400 From: Louis Mamakos <louie@transsys.com> To: Luigi Rizzo <rizzo@iet.unipi.it> Cc: fbsd2@yahoo.com, Sam Leffler <sam@freebsd.org>, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: busybox and small scripting languages on FreeBSD ? (was Re: 80 Mb / enough for 7.x? OK to delete /stand/ and /modules/ ?) Message-ID: <9C6216B2-AB67-45A2-900C-3492340737DF@transsys.com> In-Reply-To: <20080802225643.GA84798@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> References: <372128.56919.qm@web51502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20080802.002039.58462077.imp@bsdimp.com> <4894A9D8.2090606@freebsd.org> <20080802225643.GA84798@onelab2.iet.unipi.it>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Aug 2, 2008, at 6:56 PM, Luigi Rizzo wrote: > On Sat, Aug 02, 2008 at 11:39:20AM -0700, Sam Leffler wrote: > ... >> I've been looking at nanobsd for a couple of applications and >> working to >> reduce the footprint of the images without hacking special rules. >> With > ... >> If we're ever to consider building images for flash parts (not >> compact >> flash) then we'll need to do a lot of work to pare down the bloat--or >> replace current apps w/ special purpose replacements a la busybox >> (not >> something I find appealing). > > related to this thread -- does anyone have experience in trying > to build busybox on FreeBSD ? > > Also, what would you suggest as a small scripting language to be used > in this kind of platform for implementing CGI scripts (and preferably > able to use sockets/select) ? > > The various perl/python/php and friend are in the 10MB range once you > pick up a little bit of libraries (sockets etc) and the tangle of > modules they require; awk (which is present in busybox) is ok-ish for > some things, but doing > I/O and calling external programs with it is very unfriendly; > javascript/spidermonkey is on the 500KB range but it doesn't have > a library to play with sockets... I'd also suggest looking at Lua, as someone else mentioned. It's BSD licensed, and written explicitly for small footprint, embedded applications. There's a port to the Lego Mindstorms controller, for example. The Lua language is written in ANSI C, and has a small set of well defined interfaces to the OS for opening files, memory allocation, etc. There are a number of web based Lua application environments; google for "Lua Kepler" for one such example. There's also a couple of Wiki platforms written in Lua. I think of Lua as the sort of tool you might use these days as compared to Tcl some years ago. It also would be suitable for replacing FORTH in /boot/loader as something that's still small and compact enough, with many fewer sharp edges exposed to users.. louie
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?9C6216B2-AB67-45A2-900C-3492340737DF>