Le 30/11/2025 à 01:41, Steve Litt a écrit :
> Didier Kryn said on Sat, 29 Nov 2025 10:11:11 +0100
>
>> Let me suggest to
>> build a static Busybox and install it on /bin and /sbin; it'll take
>> you less effort, and the concept has fun by itself, which Slackware
>> hasn't.
> Questions:
>
> 1 Have you actually done this?
    Yes. During several years.
>
> 2 Did you like the result?

    First, it was in a custom initramfs, therefore not in Debian
proper, but in a custom pre-boot system for Debian on Powerpc. It was
necessary and it worked wonderfully on a production system.

    Later I built a Linux-Busybox OS on a USB key to test Vdev, when
Jude Nelson was developping it. It was the last time. It did the job.

> 3 Was it fun to do?
    The first thing you do when starting to develop your init process
is to tell the kernel that the init program is an interactive shell
(Busybox comes with two shells). Here you are: at the very beginning of
it all. DIY; here's a part of the fun. But Busybox is fun to discover also.
> 4 Did you use Busybox init?

    Never. For my professional project, I devised my own init script.
It was in a very peculiar case, with several diskless SBCs using a
shared filesystem mounted on NFS, or, optionnaly, a local filesystem on
a USB key. The init script detected the configuration automatically.

    For Vdev test, the goal was essentially to test vdev, and there
wasn't much init to do.

> 5 Are you pretty knowledgeable about this subject?
  I'm like a kind of veteran user, let's say. Not up to date, but with
good remembrance.
> 6 Would you like to give a remote presentation on this at GoLUG?

    Don't think like doing that. I haven't fun in doing presentations,
it would take me a lot of work and logistics. I'm buzy enough.

    It seems there are plenty of people on this list who have the
desire to play with this sort of things like tweaking the boot process
or having static applications. Rather than painfully compiling lots and
lots of applications, I say they would have less pain with building a
static Busybox and start playing with it.

    Busybox is a single program which can do it all, like ls, mount, or
vi. Either you run the command 'busybox ls', or you create the symlink
ls, pointing to busybox, and just run 'ls'.

    You can put it any place you want. But beware: if you run the
"install" command, it creates a large number of symlinks in /bin and
/sbin; therefore, if you want to "install" it, do it in a chroot.

    Please also note that, in Devuan, at least on my laptop, it is
already present in /bin. You have also the option to install a
ready-made static version instead with apt-get. In both cases the
configuration is Debian's; I don't know what applications it provides
and I guess it wont accept the "install" command.

--     Didier