March 19, 2001, 4:49 PM —
There is no doubt in my mind that Linux is the best operating system available, and having the source at your fingertips provides enormous leverage. That was reinforced for me after giving an X.25 course recently in Canberra, Australia. I had been unhappy with the ancient X.25 Packet Assembler/Disassemblers (PADs) the class used and thought that we ought to be able to use Linux to demonstrate many of the concepts in the course.
While Linux has good X.25 support, when using X.25 between pairs of Linux systems you have to modify the LAPB driver (to function as a DCE). I felt that made class setup more difficult. On the flight home, I fired up my laptop and modified the LAPB driver to automatically set the appropriate parameter when loading the module with insmod or modprobe. Try doing that with a proprietary operating system!
When I got home, I had everything working, which means that future courses will be able to use Linux with Ethereal to give students hands-on exposure to X.25 using modern tools that they are likely to have available in the office and at home.
