Go to Mailing List if you have question..

Sorry this is straight forward! 

I sometimes eceived a lot of email asking how to use NS2, I believe other bloggers who have topic on ns2 in their blog experience the same. 

When you have some problem with the code or anything regarding your simulation please go to respective mailing list, and read the tutorials, thats how you work with open source especially ns2. 

Coming to other peoples blog, never give input or exchange information in provided comment section, but merely ask to debug your code or to solve your problem, is just rude! Plain RUDE.  Some of the problem are already asked in respective mailing list.

It will be worst if the questions are regarding your assignment that your lecturer gave you! 

Network SImulator with large user base

For me to choose a network simulator, one of the factor is to use a network simulator that used by a lot of user. Here why :

1. More popular the network simulators. Me myself would prefer a network simulator with a lot of user using it compared to simulator with only one user using it.

2. Build confidence in the result . The more user using it, the more validation work can be done. Validation work build confidence in network simulators.

3. Easy support. By joining their mailing list we can easily get support from the user. There are a lot of people discussing about the network simulators.

User Interface in Network Simulator

User interface in network simulator can be divided into two: 

1. Graphical User Interface 
2. Language based Interface 

Example of  network simulator utilising GUI are OPNET and OMNET++ 

Example language based interface are NS2 and NS3 

Graphical user interface is easy to be used if it is well designed, however building GUI is not an easy tasks. 

Language Interface is not easy for beginner, but it is very flexible. 

Giving the language and user interface , which are my choice? I rather choose for both. I want to have flexibility and I want to have an easy to use simulator. But which simulator support both? 

NS2 is lack of support tools

NS2, is lack of support tool! This is my commnet about NS2. Yeah. It is popular, but without support tool it wont be easy for beginners to learn NS2.

To use NS2, we need to create a simulation script - which is in Tcl which is not taught in universities syllabus. 

To run ns2, we need to run the ns interpreter, through console.

To analyze ns2 result, we need to create our own program or use third party tools developed by others.