Well, I installed all of 9ants (thanks, microftiv), it proved irresistible, but the Atheros 2414 ethernet adapter isn't supported and, mysteriously, a 3com 509B isn't detected by the bootstrap process. It is seen as a PCI device at run time...
And the main goal, really, was TLS/SSH, with quick and slick text exchanges as a bonus. Lucio.