How To Install busybox on Debian 9

In this tutorial we learn how to install busybox on Debian 9. busybox is Tiny utilities for small and embedded systems

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install busybox on Debian 9.

What is busybox

busybox is:

BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for the most common utilities you would usually find on your desktop system (i.e., ls, cp, mv, mount, tar, etc.). The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.

This package installs the BusyBox binary but does not install symlinks for any of the supported utilities. Some of the utilities can be used in the system by installing the busybox-syslogd, busybox-udhcpc or busybox-udhcpd packages.

There are three methods to install busybox on Debian 9. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install busybox Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install busybox using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install busybox

Install busybox Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install busybox using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install busybox

Install busybox Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install busybox using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install busybox

How To Uninstall busybox on Debian 9

To uninstall only the busybox package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove busybox

Uninstall busybox And Its Dependencies

To uninstall busybox and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 9, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove busybox

Remove busybox Configurations and Data

To remove busybox configuration and data from Debian 9 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge busybox

Remove busybox configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove busybox configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge busybox

Dependencies

busybox have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install busybox package on Debian 9 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.