Replacing fdisk with gnu fdisk in busybox?

Alkisx · 10-23-2009, 07:24 AM

I want to replace the fdisk that is included on the busy box of the Slackware dvd, with the gnu fdisk. Trying to find something but not any luck till now.

Can it be done?

mostlyharmless · 10-23-2009, 08:48 AM

I haven't a clue about that, but am curious. I guess if you're using an initrd you could put any program you want in the initrd.gz/bin, but otherwise I'm guessing you'd have some major busybox hacking, recompiling to do.... But why oh why would you want to do that? How does "gnu fdisk" differ from the fdisk in busybox and what is it that it offers?

Alkisx · 10-23-2009, 09:23 AM

The reason I want to do this is here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...cedure-763910/

It is a detail of a bigger effort.

I thought installing parted into the busy box and configure for use instead of fdisk. But since gnu fdisk uses the same commands, I thought just a replacement would need less work.

But things on busy box are a bit different. it is not just a compile. If you look at the structure of busybox you understand why.

mostlyharmless · 10-23-2009, 10:02 AM

Oh well, that's a good reason, but your two threads should probably be merged.

Quote:

But things on busy box are a bit different. it is not just a compile

That's why I said hacking too...

Alkisx · 10-23-2009, 10:07 AM

No no, I don't want it to be merged, the replacement of the old fdisk with the gnu one it is just a possibility. And a big one. If the result is good, then it would be referered to the other thread as a step.

But it could be also different thread.

And well, yes some hacking, but I don't know how to do this on busybox (at least untill know), and something that it says inside about where is the location on how to use the command to create applets, that location it says is not there.

So I am a bit stacked, if anyone can help, or knows how to put software inside busybox, and documentation about using it. The one I found, it is not enough I think for newcomers on it.

gnashley · 10-23-2009, 11:51 AM

Just remove the fdisk link to busbox and copy the real thing over if the installer initrd has glibc in it, or if the installer has no glibc, then compile and statically link fdisk and copy it over to the initrd. You can probaly even link against newlib, dietlib or uClibc to make it smaller. But, last I checked, the installer had glibc in there -for dialog and maybe some other things, so real fdisk should have no trouble running there either -excpet you may need to copy libuuid or whatever other depends of fdisk are not in there.