OS for Network Analyzing

Centrist · Post by **Centrist** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:42 pm

I have several old laptops that I want to use to test network connections. I would like to use Ethereal (or something similar), a convenient DHCP utility, and any program that can speak CDP (cisco discovery protocol). Anything more advanced, like benchmarking apps, would be a plus but aren't necessary. I'm also not sure that I need a GUI, but trying to make sense of a protocol analyzer's output in wrapped text seems difficult.

I would just load Windows or Debian, but these laptops have 600Mhz processors or less, and I want to use the smallest OS that will do what I want.

Any Suggestions?

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 3:36 pm

If you want a light Operating system I'd suggest OpenBSD, It includes quite a few networking applications(tcpdump etc..), And has a simple text based installation.

With a base install, You can get a fully functional system using around 400/500Mb of disk space. (But having a larger drive is recommended.. )

As for the CPU speed, 600mhz is more then adequate for many things, I have a few Pentium 2 workstations that clock around 400mhz and work perfectly fine even with X running.

In any case, OpenBSD generic can run on 386 systems still.. Works nicely on older 486-class laptops also.

http://www.openbsd.org/

Dex · Post by **Dex** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:00 pm

How much work are wanting to do yourself, as dex OS has full working stack with most protocols done, and is very light, with a disk size of less than 64k including OS.
But only as drivers for rtl8139 ethernet card, for now.

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:03 pm

for size, get DSL
also, on old machines you might want to consider an "ancient" version of windows: '98. Runs smoothly on an 486DX. Not sure wether it handles laptops properly, but then again, even *nix or *bsd might not work out of the box...

Dex · Post by **Dex** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:25 pm

Wow how did DSL fit all that into 50MB, they must of use a packer.
To fill the rest of the 49MB with 0

.

B.E · Post by **B.E** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:53 pm

I would go for FreeBSD. It will run on a 486 with 32MB of memory and <500MB of harddrive space.

To tell you the truth, any operating system will run on a 600Mhz(except vista), if you have a lot of memory(>256) and some hardrive space(2gb), then just install windows xp,(I've ran (for 2 yesrs) windowx xp on a pentium 400(256 meory and a 6 gb hardrive), and had no problems). Even DOS will do what you need it to do.

Centrist · Post by **Centrist** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:11 pm

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm playing with DSL at the moment, and I'll try some of the BSD variants tomorrow.

Thanks again.

TheQuux · Post by **TheQuux** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:26 am

Uhh, dlx? Linux on a floppy...

The only problem is that it's hopelessly outdated.

Or, an LFS installation can be done for size; for installation, you could set up the install on a full machine (e.g., your beowulf :- ), and then copy it onto the laptops.

If you choose to use gentoo or roll your own, I would recommend kdrive as an X server, running on fbdev. Both are small and get reasonable performance for what you're using it for. In addition, try fluxbox as a window manager; it's one of the smaller WMs avaliable.

And linux will certainly run just fine on those laptops. I started using linux on an 83 MHz doorstop, with 24 megs of RAM, and a Diamons Stealth Pro VLB graphics card (NEW! now with 2D Graphics accelleation!).. . all of which has since been accidentally melted into slag.