Adding a C compiler to BusyBox

Question

I recently started using BusyBox to do simple tasks, but now I need gcc, tcc or any C compiler on it.

I heard about adding an applet, but I don't know how to do it. I have gcc source, BusyBox source, openSUSE and GNU make.

Answer 1

If your machine has network access, you can use busybox's wget to download stuff off of the internet, including a C compiler binary. However, this is likely the wrong way of doing it. It is likely you are running a distribution of Linux which has a package manager available since this is the standard way of obtaining software using Linux.

To determine which distribution of Linux you are running, use cat /etc/*-release and note the NAME.

It sounds like you are running a small distribution. When you posted the comment this would have been CentOS. These days it would be Alpine Linux. Use the appropriate package manager to download and install GCC, which you can find by looking up "How to install GCC on [insert linux distro here]".

Answer 2

Not possible. From the Official Busybox page:

    Currently available applets include:

    [, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
    awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2, cal, cat,
    catv, chat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst, chroot,
    chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, cp, cpio, crond, crontab,
    cryptpw, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser, depmod,
    devmem, df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd, dnsdomainname,
    dos2unix, dpkg, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep, eject,
    env, envdir, envuidgid, expand, expr, fakeidentd, false, fbset,
    fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs, flash_lock,
    flash_unlock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix, fsync,
    ftpd, ftpget, ftpput, fuser, getopt, getty, grep, gunzip, gzip, hd,
    hdparm, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush, hwclock, id,
    ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave, ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init, inotifyd,
    insmod, install, ionice, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs, iplink,
    iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall, killall5, klogd,
    last, length, less, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont,
    loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd, lpq, lpr,
    ls, lsattr, lsmod, lzmacat, lzop, lzopcat, makemime, man, md5sum,
    mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mkfifo, mkfs.minix, mkfs.vfat,
    mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount, mountpoint,
    mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nice, nmeter, nohup, nslookup, od,
    openvt, passwd, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6, pipe_progress,
    pivot_root, pkill, popmaildir, printenv, printf, ps, pscan, pwd,
    raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readlink, readprofile, realpath,
    reformime, renice, reset, resize, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm,
    rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir, rx, script,
    scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch, setconsole, setfont,
    setkeycodes, setlogcons, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum, sha256sum,
    sha512sum, showkey, slattach, sleep, softlimit, sort, split,
    start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv,
    svlogd, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd, tac,
    tail, tar, taskset, tcpsvd, tee, telnet, telnetd, test, tftp, tftpd,
    time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, true, tty, ttysize,
    udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, umount, uname, uncompress, unexpand, uniq,
    unix2dos, unlzma, unlzop, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode, uuencode,
    vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, watch, watchdog, wc, wget, which, who,
    whoami, xargs, yes, zcat, zcip