James Newtons Massmind writes:

> My main objection to the http://www.asterisk.org way was the cost of the
> voice modems, but I guess $30 a pop isn't bad at all. 

When I saw that link I was very tempted to pop for one of the $30
cards myself.  Heck, I'd pay $30 just not to have to deal with eBay...

> Is there a MINIMAL, boots from a CD and just does the install without me,
> dist of *nix that supports asterisk's minimum requirements: WHICH AREN'T
> LISTED... As far as I can find. This is classic; I can see it now: "Asterisk
> will run on just about any *nix... Oh! Not THAT *nix." 

You might want to try Knoppix.  If things work when you boot the CD,
there is an option to install the whole system to your hard disk.
Knoppix is far from minimal, but there are quite a number of Knoppix
derivitives that are quite minimal.

> Here is all I can find about what it needs: "Asterisk is primarily developed
> on GNU/Linux for x/86. It is known to compile and run on GNU/Linux for PPC
> along with OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X Jaguar. Other platforms and
> standards-based UNIX-like operating systems should be reasonably easy to
> port for anyone with the time and requisite skill to do so. Asterisk is
> available in the testing and unstable Debian archives, maintained thanks to
> Mark Purcell."
> 
> So what the heck is "GNU/Linux"? Googling for it comes up with
> http://www.debian.org/ so I guess that would be the best bet? Is there a
> minimal install of that? I only see 

The term GNU/Linux is a verbal concession to the GNU team.  "Linux" is
just the OS kernel, and represents only a tiny fraction of a "Linux
Distribution."  The GNU team raised a stink (rightfully so!) a few
years back when it appeared as if the Linux people were taking credit
for their software.  Of course, the Linux people never had any
intention of doing this, and things appeared the way they did only
because so few people actually realize where the kernel ends and the
rest of the system begins.

> I would just as soon NOT support networking (not needed and prevents
> hacking) and X (buggy, resource hog, etc..) but would want to provide really
> complete, bulletproof support for the hard drive (defrag, surface checks,
> etc...), sound cards, and for Perl scripting.

I've always been a big fan of Debian, but I generally don't recomend
it to new Linux users.  Partly because the "stable" release is so out
of date, and partly because the installer is rather arcane.  There
are, however, several other distributions built on top of Debian.
Knoppix is a good example of a system built on top of Debian.  I've
also heard good things about Mepis, which is another system built on
top of Debian geared more towards the Linux newbie.  (Though I've
never played with Mepis myself.)

If you have a machine you want to dedicate to Linux (i.e., no other
valuable data on it) it still might be worth giving Debian a shot,
especially if you don't plan to run x/windows.  The big advantage of
Debian is that it is one of the few distributions where you can get a
very minimal, very secure system out of the box, and then add just the
packages you actually need.  Download the latest network installer
(netinst) for your platform from:

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

Burn the 100 meg ISO to cdrom, boot it, and follow all the defaults.

If you get a bootable system, then log in as root and type:

# apt-get install asterisk

Then you should have a complete asterisk system ready for
configuration.  If not, well, you can worry about that when you get
there...

-p.
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