Have you ever wondered if there are even more suckless linux guests for the GNS3 network simulator? Following guests can be considered the most lightweight, and the just the right guests for your GNS3 network topology:
| Distribution | Alpine Linux | TinyCore | SliTaz |
|---|---|---|---|
| Download ISO | Alpine Linux | TinyCore | SliTaz |
| Repositry Index | Alpine Linux Packages | TinyCore 8 Repository | SliTaz Packages |
| Root size | 40 MB | 12 MB | 60 MB |
| Installation time | ~ 1 Min. | 10 Min. | 10 Min |
| ttyS0 available | yes | manual configuration | manual configuration |
| Documentation | best | good | fair |
| Boottime using QEMU | 8 sec. | 3 Sec. | 15 Sec. |
| Available packages/builds | |||
| quagga | yes | no | no |
| tac_plus | no | no | yes |
| syslog server | yes | no | no |
| cron | yes | yes | yes |
| dhcp server | yes | yes | no |
| scapy | yes | no | no |
| wireshark | yes | yes | yes |
| fping | yes | no | yes |
| IPv6 out of the box | yes | no | no |
| nmap | yes | yes | yes |
Note: Once a guest system has been installed it is hard making major upgrades. f.e. from 1.0 to 2.0 The only rolling release has been found on Slitaz.
My personal favourite is TinyCore it is the smallest guest, but it needs manual adjustments, this is the smallest and most suckless linux appliance I have been working with. It is lacking some packages I often work with. Quagga and tac_plus are not available in official repository and tac_plus and a syslog server.
For quick installation with very good documentation Alpinelinux is a good choice. But the packages are somehow big and the root file system grows very fast with each package installed. So the virtual disk needs to reflect that. Apart from that this is a nice linux guest, I have been surprised how quickly it has been installed and how good the documentation is. Without any clue it has been installed and configured very fast. I have never used it before.
Slitaz is a nice and suckless desktop distribution with quite actual packages. Using version 4.0, which is now a bit outdated, there was a base installation with only 40 packages occupying maximal 50 MB. This installation mode does not exist any more using the rolling release. While using rolling release now to install the guest it is needed to install the core versions (it means desktop version) and strip down all all unnecessary packages to around 50 installed from initially around 250. That is very time consuming. However SliTaz is the only lightweight distribution that makes it possible to build own packages form source, similar to gentoo or sourcemage. But is is not good suited for a quick and suckless guest solution in a networking testing environment. I like the build your own packages part here.