Here I'm going to describe the basic requirements of GNS3 package.

We are still looking for a contributor for Red Hat/Fedora; That's the only major distro family that doesn't offer GNS3.

What do you need for complete GNS3 experience ?

• GNS3 (***) (official release or my VirtualBox Edition, aka gns3-vbe)
• Dynamips-community 0.2.8RC3 (***) (with VDE)
• UDP patched Qemu (***) (with VDE)
• Python (***) (2.5/2.6/2.7)
• pyQt4 (***) (v4.7.x best - 4.8.x also sort-of works)
• telnet client (***)
• Wireshark (**)
• VDE (*) (Virtual Distributed Ethernet, +symlink to /usr/lib/libvdeplug.so, if u packaging that one)
• vpcs (*) - currently it has weak integration with GNS3, but in future it is likely to become a dependency.

GNS3 VBE added some extra recommended dependencies:

• VirtualBox 4.1 (***) (with VDE and VBoxPython, +enable VNC, if u packaging that one)
• xdotool (**) (used for X11 windows manipulation)
• GNU Tail (**) (for non-GNU systems, used for Live-capture)
• Putty (*) (on X11 UNIX-like systems)
• PEMU (*) (which is no longer part of GNS3 core)

Guest OSes / Virtual Machines, should also install:

• VirtualBox GuestAdditions (*) - those are available for Windows, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD.

This is needed for some features, such as: Guest IP address retrieval and GuestControl execution.

Desktop Integration: (optional)

• Associate *.net file extension
• hardlink "gns3.pyw" as "gns3" for backward compatibility and ease-of-use.

Importance:
*** - Dependency or Very important
** - Recommended
* - Very Optional, most users won't notice.

That being said, I fully expect our packagers to package all ** and *** packages.

-----------
List of package maintainers:
Mageia - ryoshu (port incomplete)
openSUSE - anubisg1
Debian (+Ubuntu+Mint) - Erik Wenzel "plopix"
FreeBSD - Olivier Cochard-Labbe
Archlinux - Tarjaizaid and max-k
Mac OS X - Jeremy Grossman "grossmj"
Windows - Alexey Eromenko "Technologov" + Jeremy Grossman "grossmj"

-Technologov

Why do you need putty on X11 ?

Putty is purely optional.
This is mostly intended for users migrating from MS Windows, where Putty is pretty much the only Free game in town.
I try to achieve similar look-and-feel on Windows and X11 UNIX-like platforms.

Here is how to use your BETA9 release under FreeBSD:

1. Install qemu port and don't forget to enable GNS3 option


2. Download virtualbox 4.1-BETA and install it


=> "UDP tunnel" option should be allready enabled

3. Download and install gns3-devel (VBox based):


4. Run-it and enjoy :-)

just an info..

gns3 0.7.4 and gns3 0.8.0 vbox CANNOT be installed together in the same machine. (at least on linux)

the fact that gns3 vbox has /usr/bin/gns3.pyw instead of /usr/bin/gns3 doesn't solve the problem because all python stuff is installed in the same folder and will overwrite what you already have from 0.7.4 (site-packages/GNS3 folder)

a first openSUSE package is available in my repo here:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositori ... etworking/

side notes for my package:
1) no explicit dependency on vbox 4.1 yet
2) i still can't build from source pemu (if you succeded please let me know)

1. You need vbox-4.1 and xdotool dependencies. Xdotool must be packaged for openSUSE.
2. I haven't tried to compile PEMU. (But I expect it's dependencies to be equal with Qemu)
3. I think they *can* be installed together. (maybe setup.py needs update, not sure, as I don't use it - I copy manually)
Just copy my python code into different folder (i.e. gns3-vbe instead of gns3)

Try to put everything into (site-packages/gns3-vbe folder, and symlink site-packages/gns3-vbe/gns3.pyw as /usr/bin/gns3-vbe)

xdotool is already been added as dependency, vbox not yet because i'm looking on the best way to deal between the version downloaded from vbox website and the OSS version provided in suse repos.



the problem is the code, incredibly old, doesn't build with gcc 4.x and have issues on x86_64



so you are telling me that the "site-packages" folder can actually be everywhere? if so, than i can do something for it.

1. SUSE VBox maintainers should upgrade the package to v4.1
Contact them first.

2. PEMU --- huh... then no idea. With GNS 0.7.x you basically provided for pre-compiled version.
I suggest to put PEMU into "non-free" repo then. (as pre-compiled binary) and not bother with code. (that's what Debian did with GNS3 0.7.x)

Idially, long-term, it is best to merge PEMU changes into upstream Qemu (and possibly port PEMU into VBox as well). It will probably be done by the new team, formed and lead by "benjamin".

3. My version (VBE 0.8.x) can be run from _anywhere_.
Official GNS3 0.7.x is much more strict about it. (once you install a version like 0.7.4 into "official" location, other 0.7.x versions can't be run)
See "Release notes" in the "Announcement" topic.

- Technologov

OK: Summary:

Due to great contributing community, GNS3 was packaged for: openSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, ArchLinux, FreeBSD. (only one big family lacking here is "Red Hat" -- anyone ?).

Core developers intend to provide packages for Windows and Mac OS X.

update:

CALL for HELP: Please Translate upcoming GNS3 v0.8
Hello dear GNS3 contributors and translators,

The GNS3 projects officially asks your help to translate upcoming
official GNS3 v0.8 to your local language.
We plan to release v0.8.2 BETA this month (Dec.2011) and final 0.8.2 early 2012.

Please contact us on forum, here:
post11571.html

Poorly written and incomplete translations are likely to be dropped
from the GNS3 distribution (below 70% completeness), in order to avoid
confusion of local users in your countries.

Translation HOWTO:
http://blog.gns3.net/2010/12/translation-howto/

The GNS3 team is thankful in advance for your cooperation,
--
-Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"
05.Dec.2011

I can definitely update the Slovak translation.