On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:12 AM, Yan Xiaofei <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I found SL58 use busybox environment in %pre script in kickstart.
> So some of the command failed because it different with util command.
> Is there way to disable busybox in %pre script?
>
>
> Another question:
> What is the default environment of SL5.9?
>
> Best Regards
>
> Xiaofei

The question is good, but kind of backwards. That small, limited shell
and binary environment on installation CD's and the old installtion
floppies had to be very, very small in order to *fit* on floppies.
Busybox provided that, with a lot of basic system commands linked into
a single binary to save space with all the command parsing and leaving
out lots of complex and not critical functions.

Since people don't use floppies for installation much anymore, it's
not so important. But the bigger this bootstraqp environment, the
larger the space needed in RAM for bootstrap installations such as
PXE, and the less RAM resources left for doing the actual instlalation
itself, especially for RPM installation processes or the X based GUI
that is commonly used now. So there's real pressure to keep the small,
limited busybox environment that has worked pretty well up until now.

If you need a LiveCD to do installations from, and aren't instlaling
on embedded devices with small resources, that's one way to get access
to more powerful tools.