Dr. Tibbs, Debian, RedHat, or any version of Linux or BSD would be perfectly fine for what you are doing. In fact, as much as I would rather continue to champion LEAF, for your situation it would probably be easier in the long run for you to choose whatever OS is going to be most familiar to you and your class. That way they do not have to learn the specifics of configuring LEAF when what they are really trying to do is learn routing protocols.
On the other hand, if you had a huge amount of time for development and documentation (or some grad students to abuse) you could use User Mode Linux with the latest Bering and Zebra to produce a virtual environment that would allow each student to create multiple routing environments on a single physical system and then connect the physical systems together through multiple physical interfaces. Very sleek stuff! If you do intend to continue with using LEAF then I would recommend Bering. It has the greatest user base to provide you with answers to any questions that you might have. Also, here is a bit of zebra stuff that might help you make the decision. There are actually three versions of Zebra: ZebOS - A commercial version developed by IP Infusion which was founded by Kunihiro Ishiguro, the original creator of the Zebra Routing Engine. Their version is supposed to be exceptionally feature rich (such as MPLS support) and stable enough for the most grueling of production environments. As a learning institution this could be an avenue for you. Check www.ipinfusion.com. Zebra - This is the GPL version of the ZebOS software. Sometime ago there was a split with ZebOS being developed primarily by IP Infusion internal programmers and Zebra being developed by the Internet community. The only real maintainer of Zebra is Kunihiro himself. Having a profitable company to run, he is notoriously bad about putting out new stable releases and in the past many good patches took for ever to be accepted if they were not forgotten outright. Zebra-PJ - So named by the Zebra mailing list since it has been maintained by Paul Jakma. Over the last six months this version has become the standard. It even just recently got its own Debian package maintainer. It is also the version that is currently recommended on the Zebra mailing list. Having said all of this, my zebra.lrp packages are based on the standard Zebra release "NOT" Zebra-PJ and I "DO" recommend using the latest release of Zebra-PJ. Hopefully, in the near future, work will allow me the time to get these packages updated, however, that is at least three months out. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask. Respectfully, Eric ----------------------------------------- Eric B Kiser, CISSP VP of Information Technology NetOps Training Solutions ----------------------------------------- > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:leaf-user- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dr. Richard W. Tibbs > Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 10:39 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [leaf-user] Bering/Dachstien/<writein> on HD (was Is there a way > to install Bering on HD) > > List, > Thank you all for your advice. Someone advised to simply install debian > with such a generous hard drive. > I thought the capabilities of the LEAF variants (having descended from > LRP) made them attractive for router applications. > If debian or Red Hat would do just as well, I may as well use that. > My intentions, FWIW, are to teach a class in configuring BGP and OSPF > using zebra.lrp. > Are there any advantages/disadvantages to Bering as opposed to Dachstein > or other distribs for this purpose? > > Thanks, > Rick. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including > Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. > Download today and enter to win an XBOX or Visual Studio .NET. > http://aspnet.click- > url.com/go/psa00100003ave/direct;at.aspnet_072303_01/01 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > leaf-user mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user > SR FAQ: http://leaf-project.org/pub/doc/docmanager/docid_1891.html ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. Download today and enter to win an XBOX or Visual Studio .NET. http://aspnet.click-url.com/go/psa00100003ave/direct;at.aspnet_072303_01/01 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ leaf-user mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user SR FAQ: http://leaf-project.org/pub/doc/docmanager/docid_1891.html