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GeezerVison is showing en.wikipedia.org — musl - Wikipedia

For the American lottery organization MUSL, see Multi-State Lottery Association.
musl
DevelopersRich Felker (dalias) and others
ReleaseFebruary 11, 2011 (2011-02-11)[1]
Stable release
1.2.6[2] / March 20, 2026 (2026-03-20)
Operating systemLinux 2.6 or later
Platformx86, x86_64, ARM, loongarch64, MIPS, Microblaze, PowerPC, powerpc64, x32, RISC-V, OpenRISC, s390x, SuperH
Type
  • C standard library
  • Linux for embedded systems
  • Linux for mobile devices
LicenseMIT License
Websitemusl.libc.org
Repository
  • git.musl-libc.org/cgit/musl

musl is a C standard library intended for operating systems based on the Linux kernel, released under the MIT License.[3] It was developed by Rich Felker to write a clean, efficient, and standards-conformant libc implementation.[4] Unlike glibc’s LGPL, musl’s MIT licence does not require distributors of statically linked applications to provide relinkable object files.[5]

Overview

musl was designed from scratch to allow efficient static linking and to have realtime-quality robustness by avoiding race conditions, internal failures on resource exhaustion, and various other bad worst-case behaviors present in existing implementations.[4] The dynamic runtime is a single file with stable ABI allowing race-free updates and the static linking support allows an application to be deployed as a single portable binary without significant size overhead.

It claims compatibility with the POSIX 2008 specification and the C11 standard. It also implements most of the widely used non-standard Linux, BSD, and glibc functions.[6] There is partial ABI compatibility with the part of glibc required by Linux Standard Base.[7]

Version 1.2.0 has support for (no longer current) Unicode 12.1.0 (while still having full UTF-8 support,[8] more conformant/strict than glibc), and version 1.2.1 "features the new 'mallocng' malloc implementation, replacing musl's original dlmalloc-like allocator that suffered from fundamental design problems."[2]

Use

Linux distributions which use musl as their standard C library (some use only musl) include but are not limited to:

  • Alpine Linux[9]
  • Dragora 3[10]
  • Gentoo Linux[11]
  • OpenWrt[12]
  • Nura[13]
  • Sabotage[14]
  • Adélie Linux
  • Morpheus Linux[15]
  • Chimera Linux[16]
  • Void Linux (but not for IA-32)[17]
  • KISS Linux

A modified version of musl is available for userspace code written for the seL4 microkernel[18], requiring users to implement the parts of the Linux system call interface that the subset of musl they wish to use depends on.

Huawei's HarmonyOS NEXT operating system uses a fork of musl as its libc implementation.[19]

For binaries that have been linked against glibc, gcompat and[20] glibmus-hq[21] can be used to execute them on musl-based distros.

See also

  • Bionic libc
  • dietlibc
  • EGLIBC
  • klibc
  • Newlib
  • uClibc

References

  1. ↑ "musl - obsolete versions". musl-libc.org. 2017-10-31. Retrieved 2018-01-14.>
  2. 1 2 "musl libc Release History". musl.libc.org. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  3. ↑ Rich Felker; et al. (2016-04-29). "COPYRIGHT". Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2016-09-26.
  4. 1 2 "Introduction to musl". 2016-04-21. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2016-09-26.
  5. ↑ About musl, “Ease of deployment” section.
  6. ↑ "Compatibility". wiki.musl-libc.org. 2014-05-27. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2016-09-26.
  7. ↑ "Comparison of C/POSIX standard library implementations for Linux". www.etalabs.net. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16.
  8. ↑ "musl libc - Functional differences from glibc". wiki.musl-libc.org. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  9. ↑ "About". Alpine Linux. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  10. ↑ Larabel, Michael (30 September 2018). "Dragora 3.0 Alpha 2 Released As One Of The Libre GNU/Linux Platforms". Phoronix. Phoronix Media. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  11. ↑ "Welcome - Gentoo Linux". Gentoo Linux. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  12. ↑ Fietkau, Felix (16 Jun 2015). "OpenWrt switches to musl by default". Archived from the original on 28 July 2015.
  13. ↑ "About postmarketOS - postmarketOS Wiki". wiki.postmarketos.org. Retrieved 2024-08-07.
  14. ↑ README.md on GitHub
  15. ↑ "morpheus". Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  16. ↑ "Chimera Linux - About". Chimera Linux. Retrieved 2023-05-10.
  17. ↑ "Enter the void". Void Linux. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  18. ↑ seL4/musllibc, seL4 microkernel and related repositories, 2020-08-30, archived from the original on 2021-10-16, retrieved 2020-09-05
  19. ↑ "A first look at app security on HarmonyOS NEXT". promon.io. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  20. ↑ "Adélie Linux / gcompat". GitLab. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2019-10-21.
  21. ↑ "Manoel-linux-gitlab / GlibMus-HQ · GitLab".

Sources

  • "About musl". musl. Retrieved 19 September 2026.

External links

  • Official website
  • Comparison of C/POSIX standard library implementations for Linux
  • Matrix of C/POSIX standard libraries by architecture
  • Project:Musl on Gentoo wiki
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Musl&oldid=1385109028"
Categories:
  • C standard library
  • Free computer libraries
  • Free software programmed in C
  • Interfaces of the Linux kernel
  • Linux APIs
  • Software using the MIT license
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