[maemo-developers] busybox applet selection (again)

[From: Damien Moore]

I'd like to bring up the busybox applet selection issue again. This
was previously discussed here:

http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail//maemo-developers/2007-April/009738.html

with associated bug here:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=989

the bug was marked WONTFIX

Eero Tamminen's resolution was to not add any additional applets to
BusyBox because in his opinion those needs can best be met by creating
full versions of the tools in separate packages. I don't think this is
a good idea because it creates a proliferation of unnecessarily
bloated packages with the attendant problems of maintaining multiple
packages (keeping in mind that the target hardware is a capacity
constrained tablet). The benefit of busybox is that most appplets add
just a few kb to the binary size and all of them sit inside a single
binary.

My proposal is to create an alternative "essential" busybox package
that optionally replaces the default busybox, say "busybox-max".
busybox-max would be built with many more applets (more of the archive
tools, more shell support (e.g. longer command histories and color
coded ls), more networking tools etc. This package would not be
installed by default, it would just be an optional package for
developers/hackers. I don't know how well dpkg would handle the
package replacement but it is worth exploring.

thanks,
Damien Moore

PS: Can someone please tell me where I can obtain the most recent
busybox binary and source packages (v1.6.x, I think) that ships with
OS2008.