diff --git a/examples/test/test_controlnet.py b/examples/test/test_controlnet.py
index ba22740..7e7ce9a 100755
--- a/examples/test/test_controlnet.py
+++ b/examples/test/test_controlnet.py
@@ -7,13 +7,15 @@ Test for controlnet.py
 import unittest
 from mininet.util import pexpect
 
+from sys import stdout
+
 class testControlNet( unittest.TestCase ):
 
     prompt = 'mininet>'
 
     def testPingall( self ):
         "Simple pingall test that verifies 0% packet drop in data network"
-        p = pexpect.spawn( 'python -m mininet.examples.controlnet' )
+        p = pexpect.spawn( 'python -m mininet.examples.controlnet', logfile=stdout)
         p.expect( self.prompt )
         p.sendline( 'pingall' )
         p.expect ( '(\d+)% dropped' )
@@ -26,9 +28,9 @@ class testControlNet( unittest.TestCase ):
     def testFailover( self ):
         "Kill controllers and verify that switch, s1, fails over properly"
         count = 1
-        p = pexpect.spawn( 'python -m mininet.examples.controlnet' )
+        p = pexpect.spawn( 'python -m mininet.examples.controlnet', logfile=stdout )
         p.expect( self.prompt )
-        lp = pexpect.spawn( 'tail -f /tmp/s1-ofp.log' )
+        lp = pexpect.spawn( 'tail -f /tmp/s1-ofp.log', logfile=stdout )
         lp.expect( 'tcp:\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.(\d+):\d+: connected' )
         ip = int( lp.match.group( 1 ) )
         self.assertEqual( count, ip )
diff --git a/mininet/test/test_walkthrough.py b/mininet/test/test_walkthrough.py
index b3b83fb..f418d2d 100755
--- a/mininet/test/test_walkthrough.py
+++ b/mininet/test/test_walkthrough.py
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ import re
 from mininet.util import quietRun, pexpect
 from mininet.clean import cleanup
 from distutils.version import StrictVersion
-from time import sleep
+from sys import stdout
 
 
 def tsharkVersion():
@@ -168,14 +168,16 @@ class testWalkthrough( unittest.TestCase ):
             httpserver = 'SimpleHTTPServer'
         else:
             httpserver = 'http.server'
-        p = pexpect.spawn( 'mn -w' )
+        p = pexpect.spawn( 'mn -w', logfile=stdout )
+        p.expect( self.prompt )
+        p.sendline( 'h1 python -m %s 80 >& /dev/null &' % httpserver )
         p.expect( self.prompt )
-        p.sendline( 'h1 python -m %s 80 &' % httpserver )
         # The walkthrough doesn't specify a delay here, and
         # we also don't read the output (also a possible problem),
-        # but for now let's wait a couple of seconds to make
+        # but for now let's wait a number of seconds to make
         # it less likely to fail due to the race condition.
-        sleep( 2 )
+        p.sendline( 'px from mininet.util import waitListening;'
+                    'waitListening(h1, port=80, timeout=30)' )
         p.expect( self.prompt )
         p.sendline( ' h2 wget -O - h1' )
         p.expect( '200 OK' )