µ C l i b c

uClibc -- a C library for embedded systems
uClibc (aka µClibc/pronounced yew-see-lib-see) is a C library for developing embedded Linux systems. It is much smaller than the GNU C Library, but nearly all applications supported by glibc also work perfectly with uClibc. Porting applications from glibc to uClibc typically involves just recompiling the source code. uClibc even supports shared libraries and threading. It currently runs on standard Linux and MMU-less (also known as µClinux) systems with support for alpha, ARM, i386, i960, h8300, m68k, mips/mipsel, PowerPC, SH, SPARC, and v850 processors.

If you are building an embedded Linux system and you find that glibc is eating up too much space, you should consider using uClibc. If you are building a huge fileserver with 12 Terabytes of storage, than using glibc may be a better choice...

uClibc is maintained by Erik Andersen and is licensed under the GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE . This license allows you to make closed source commercial applications using uClibc (Please consider sharing some of the money you make ;-). You do not need to give away all your source code just because you use uClibc and/or run on Linux.

Mailing List Information

uClibc has a mailing list.
To subscribe, go and visit this page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Before asking questions on the uClibc mailing list, you might want to take a look at the list of Frequently Asked Questions or you might want to search the mailing list archives...
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Working Applications List

These days, pretty much everything compiles with uClibc. This is a list of applications that are known to work just fine with uClibc. Since most applications work just fine with uClibc, we are especially interested in knowing about any applications that either do not compile or do not work properly with uClibc. Submissions are welcome!
Latest News

  • 6 March 2003, development system updates
    The uClibc development systems for i386 and powerpc, and arm and now for the first time, mips, have been again updated to uClibc 0.9.19. Several smaller problems have also been fixed up.

    This is an ext2 filesystem that runs natively on the specified architecture. It contains all the development software you need to build your own uClibc applications, including bash, coreutils, findutils, diffutils, patch, sed, ed, flex, bison, file, gawk, tar, grep gdb, strace, make, gcc, g++, autoconf, automake, ncurses, zlib, openssl, openssh and more. And of course, everything is dynamically linked against uClibc. By using a uClibc only system, you can avoid all the painful cross-configuration problems that have made using uClibc somewhat painful in the past. If you want to quickly get started with testing or using uClibc this probably it. You can loop mount it and chroot into it, you can boot into it wit user-mode Linux, your can 'dd' it to a spare partition and use resize2fs to make it fill the drive. Whatever works best for you, Have Fun.

  • 3 March 2003, uClibc 0.9.19 Released
    CodePoet Consulting is pleased to announce the immediate availability of uClibc 0.9.19. This is once again primarily a bug-fix release. Several critical problems with system calls were fixed, the pthreads library was improved, debugging of applications using uClibc's pthreads library is now possible (requires gdb 5.3 or newer that is compiled using uClibc), and a number of other random fixes are included. This release retains binary compatibility with uClibc 0.9.18 (except for mips, which didn't work properly with uClibc 0.9.18 anyways). Updated development system images compiled with uClibc 0.9.19 will be released shortly.

    As usual, the Changelog and source code for this release are available here. You might want to download uClibc from the closest kernel.org mirror site. Just pick the closest mirror site, and then go to http://www.XX.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/uclibc/ to download uClibc, where XX is your two letter country code.

  • Old News
    Click here to read older news.

Sponsors
Please visit our sponsors and thank them for their support! They have provided money, equipment, bandwidth, etc. Next time you need help with a project, consider these fine companies! Several individuals have also contributed (If you have contributed and would like your name added here, just email Erik and let him know).
Do you like uClibc? Do you need support? Do you need some feature added? Then why not help out? We are happy to accept donations (such as bandwidth, mirrors sites, and hardware for the various architectures). We can also provide support contracts, and implement funded feature requests. To contribute, you can either click on the Donate image to donate using PayPal, or you can contact Erik at CodePoet Consulting (we have a credit card machine so you can avoid PayPal if you wish).
Download
Toolchains
  • Steven J. Hill has kindly provided RPMs and SRPMs with toolchains for mips.
  • You can build your own uClibc toolchain using these Makefiles which automagically download all the source needed code and compile it for you.
  • uClibc development systems for i386 and powerpc, and arm are available and contain complete gcc 3.2.2 toolchains.
  • You can compile your own uClibc development system using buildroot.
Other Open Source C libraries:
I am currently aware of the following open source C libraries.
Links to other useful stuff


Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to Erik Andersen
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