INSTALLATION GUIDE FOR NS2 ON UBUNTU

PROCEDURE 1:
The nightmare days are over!
Now you dont have to spend hours on your linux distro(ubuntu) installing and validating ns2.x
Ubuntu 10.10 has greatly simplified things. You can now install ns,nam and xgraph by just a single command in the Terminal:

1	$ sudo apt-get install ns2  nam xgraph

You will be prompted for the user password. Enter it and watch Ubuntu 10.10 do the things for You!
Happy Ubuntuing .

PROCEDURE 2:

On heeding to my  blog visitors requests, I would like to update this post with the steps to install ns2.34, the traditional way.
Step1: Download ns-allinone-2.34 package from this <site>. I will be using ns version 2.34.
Step2: Place the ns-allinone-2.34.tar.gz file in your home folder(/home/samir in my case). Right click on the package and extract the contents in the same home folder.
Step3: Next, open the Terminal(Applications–>Accessories–>Terminal in ubuntu)
Step4: Change to ns-allinone-2.34 directory

1	$ cd /home/micman/ns-allinone-2.34

Step5: First, Install the dependencies

1	$ sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libxmu-dev gcc-4.3

Note that we are downgrading the gcc version, as ns2.34 works well with gcc4.3
Edit Makefile.in found at this location ns-allinone-2.34/otcl-1.13/Makefile.in as follows:
Find the line that says:
CC= @CC@
and change it to:
CC= gcc-4.3
Step6: Begin ns2.34 installation

1

$ sudo su

1	# ./install

Step7: Once the installation is successful i.e. without any errors, we need to add the path information to the file ~/.bashrc

1	$ gedit   ~/.bashrc

Step8: Append the following lines to the file ~/.bashrc

01	# LD_LIBRARY_PATH

02	OTCL_LIB=/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/otcl-1.13

03	NS2_LIB=/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/lib

04	X11_LIB=/usr/X11R6/lib

05	USR_LOCAL_LIB=/usr/local/lib

06	export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$OTCL_LIB:$NS2_LIB:$X11_LIB:$USR_LOCAL_LIB

07

08	# TCL_LIBRARY

09

10	TCL_LIB=/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/tcl8.4.18/library

11	USR_LIB=/usr/lib

12	export TCL_LIBRARY=$TCL_LIB:$USR_LIB

13

14

# PATH

15

16

XGRAPH=/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/bin:/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/tcl8.4.18/unix:/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/tk8.4.18/unix

17

18	# Note: the above two lines starting from XGRAPH should come in the same line

20	NS=/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/ns-2.34/

21	NAM=/home/samir/ns-allinone-2.34/nam-1.14/

22	PATH=$PATH:$XGRAPH:$NS:$NAM

Here replace /home/micman with the path to your home folder.
Step9: For the changes to take effect immediately, do the following:

1	$ source      ~/.bashrc

Thats all!
type ns to see % and type nam to show the nam startup window. This shows your installation has been successful.