There are tremendous references on how to install NS2 (http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/), such as this and this. This is just yet another one.

Core

  • Prepare a Debian system. I chose Debian Sid as of Feb 8, 2006
  • Install some essential things by apt-get:
    apt-get install tcl8.4 tk8.4 tcl8.4-dev tk8.4-dev
  • Obtain ns-allinone-2.29.2.tar.gz from the repository. See http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/ for download instructions
  • Find a place (e.g. /opt) to untar the all-in-one package
    tar zxf ns-allinone-2.29.2.tar.gz
  • Compile otcl from the source:
    1. cd octl-1.11
    2. Patch the file configure with otcl-1.11-patch.txt
    3. ./configure && make
    4. cd ..
  • Compile tclcl from the source:
    cd tclcl-1.17 && ./configure && make && cd ..
  • Modify ns-2.29/configure:
    Look for the block TK_H_PLACES and then add the line 
    /usr/include/tcl$TK_VERS \

    simply speaking, use this patch: ns2.29-patch.txt

  • Compile ns:
    cd ns-2.29 && ./configure && make
  • Validate the ns compilation (caution: take an hour to do):
    ./validate

nam

  1. apt-get install libxmu-dev
  2. cd nam-1.11
  3. ./configure && make

Clean-up

Clean up for the unused:

rm -rf tcl8.4.11 tk8.4.11 xgraph-12.1 zlib-1.2.3