Switching to VoIP

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Compiling and Installing Asterisk

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In addition to these, there are USB-based telephony devices. They can turn a USB-

attached phone handset into a VoIP endpoint. These can be useful with softphones,

though most serious enterprise implementers will avoid them because, like soft-

phones, they are reliant upon the PC. For roughly the same money, you can pur-

chase a low-end IP phone like the Grandstream Budgetone series.

Compiling and Installing Asterisk

RPM packages are available to simplify Asterisk’s installation, but manual compiling

is relatively easy. So we are going to download, compile, and install Asterisk the old-

fashioned way. Real performance mechanics prefer a manual transmission over an

automatic for better command and control, after all.

The development branch you’ll download from is stable—though once you get com-

fortable with Asterisk, you’ll want to jump out on the bleeding edge and try the

developer releases, too. Each release tends to introduce something new and worth-

while, even if it’s not in the stable branch yet.

The easiest place to download the Asterisk software is the CVS repository at Digium,

the company responsible for Asterisk and the hardware components that work with

it. To access the CVS repository, you’ll need to be logged into your Linux computer