NS2 successfully installed

NS2 is a famous network simulation software. The great point of it is open source which means anyone can use and imporve it for free.

But the installation of NS2 under windows platform is somewhat troublesome, especially for the newbies like me. The true reason is it is developed under linux and there is something we have to do first to run it successfully under windows.

The guide tells three ways:

Install linux then NS2, you need only one ./install command and wait, normally everything will be OK. But I have no otiose PC now, So…
Install VC++ 6.0 then compile the NS2 source with it, one by one. You know there is several components of NS2: tcl, tclcl, tk, otcl and ns itself. In every step I have to edit the config file and compile them then pray nothing wrong. I am luck because unitl the last step I meet no errors…
Install cygwin then run install of NS2 under it. Although it took me more than 30 minutes to setup cygwin successfully ( the website of cygwin give the small setup file and then everything you need will be downloaded during the installation process ), I still think this way is the best one.

Some notice:

If you do not know which part of cygwin will be used by NS2, choose them all. By the other word, click and change the status of all components from "default" to "install".
If you want to specify the exact part of cygwin, there is the list of them. They MUST be included in order to install NS2: