Erick:

If I understand correctly, you want to install Astlinux on a CF card but use
a HDD as your "KeyDisk" for voicemail storage.  This is not a problem, I
have done it and it works well.  In the end, I found that a 4gb USB thumb
drive had more than enough space for my own voicemail needs so I decided to
go that way to remove the moving parts from the equation.  But the install
worked well with the hard drive.

What you would do is install the CF reader as the MASTER IDE drive.  Then
install the HDD as the SLAVE IDE drive (or the secondary IDE channel).  When
you get the CF booting properly, run the GENKD utility against whatever
designation the hard drive ended up with.  Could be something like "GENKD
/dev/hdb" or maybe "GENKD /dev/hdd".  This is very similar to what you would
do if you were using a USB thumb drive where you run the "GENKD /dev/sda"
command.  The "FDISK -l" command will tell what Linux has recognized as
avaialble drives so you can identify it.

And actually, I have found some of the various rants about external FXO/FXS
gateways of interest.  I will be in need of such very shortly and it is
interesting to me to hear other folks experience with some of the various
products out there.  I have never had to use anything more sophisticated
than a Linksys PAP2 in the past, so I have found this discussion to be quite
educational.

G.Hendershot

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Erick Perez
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 10:52 AM
To: Discussion of AstLinux - Asterisk on Compact Flash
Subject: Re: [Astlinux-users] external Gateway vs PCI card [was: KeyDisk]

Kristian, you haven't had time to play with Quintums right? They are as
painful as AudioCodes.

Tom,
When I'm sure that my customer will not care to see extra boxes right next
to the asterisk I go with external gateways all the time.
External Gateways (EG) provide me with the following benefits:
- EG Always have DSP chips implemented, some brands implement Octasic DSP
chips, others utilize different manufacturers.
- EG Provides the horsepower to mix and mtch codecs, and in case I need to
do transcoding, a dedicated box is always better than a motherboard full of
TDM400P -I need to make a special comment about EG and the need for channel
banks. Here my choice is RedFone (http://www.red-fone.com/)  it is basically
TDMoE and it helps me achieve several other things in terms of balance and
redundancy.

Since I am in Panama,Central America, the only thing we care when talking
about brands are Clothes, Watches and Cars.
If the customer has the money, we go for Cisco, Audicodes, Mediatrix,
because we get them locally and they have a representation office.
If the customer wants to start low and then go up then we use things like
Quintum, Octtel or equiments from telecomchinasourcing. We need to order
them from Asia, takes a long time to come here and we might have to have
some stock in case of get a unit DOA.

But to give you and example: Octtel 4 FXS, with onboard DSP,
SIP,h323,IAX2 and some other nice things: US Dollars: 250.00 and the 8port
FXS 450.00 both with 6 months warranty and full system exchange in case of
failure.
And the important thing, They work like a charm, they dont crash, they dont
get toasted,etc.

And My Asterisk box will be more than happy to get a voice stream that does
not need to transcode, recode, etc.

So my advice to you Tom, get External Gateways but keep them below 20-30 FXS
or below 20-30 FXO, ottherwise you'll end up wasting room space and power
consumption.

Kris: do you use app_meetme or app_conference for conference rooms?
The question arises due to meetme needing to convert to slin before stream
broadcasting. app_conference does not need to do that.

Oh, an in case someone actually read this post, im still learning about
mini/micro/nano ATX/ITX and I need to know what do I need to get to deploy a
12FXS/4FXO g711, CF based linux/asterisk and hdd used to hold voicemail. My
previous post went unanswered.  ;;)


I hope my rant help others....



On 9/28/06, Kristian Kielhofner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Tom Bacevicius wrote:
> > I am about to start researching the purchase of a few of these 
> > external gateways. I was wondering if anyone could share their 
> > experiences and make some recommendations? Kristian, you seem to 
> > have quite a bit of experience with these things. Can you share some 
> > of your wisdom with us ;-)
> >
> > Thanks, Tom
> >
>
> Tom,
>
> Analog/POTS:
>
> AudioCodes seem nice.  I have yet to use one extensively, but I have a 
> couple of them lying around that I have played with a bit.  They have 
> a TON of configuration options (seriously - if you though Sipura was 
> bad, just wait), which I always appreciate.
>
> For one off scenarios, I like the Linksys/Sipura devices.  The 
> features aren't bad, they are easily provisioned, and they are stable.  
> There are some quirks, though.  For instance, last I checked the 3xxx 
> gateways do not listen for DTMF tones on the PSTN Line when the call 
> has been connected to a SIP server.  That's pretty annoying...
>
> Digital (PRI hopefully):
>
> Cisco.  I really have a love/hate relationship with them.  Just when I 
> start to appreciate their products, I am reminded of why so many 
> people hate them.  When it comes time to activate or renew a service 
> contract, for example (just to get new IOS versions).  Anyways, they 
> are expensive but you can find a 2651XM and NM-HDV module on the used 
> market for less than you'd think (still not cheap).  It you are buying 
> new gear, on the low end the 2811 + PVDM2 + VWIC2 is a good combo.  On 
> the high end, you have got to appreciate the AS5xxxXM, which can 
> easily support eight PRI circuits in 1U.  All Cisco gear has 
> standardized versions of IOS that support everything you'd ever need,
including:
>
> 1) SIP over anything - UDP,TCP,etc
> 2) T.38 faxing (even as a gateway, obviously)
> 3) G729a/b/G723 in hardware (DSP)
> 4) So, so much more
>
> --
> Kristian Kielhofner
> _______________________________________________
> Astlinux-users mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.kriscompanies.com/mailman/listinfo/astlinux-users
>
> Donations to support AstLinux are graciously accepted via PayPal to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>


--
------------------------------------------------------------
Erick Perez
Panama Sistemas
Integradores de Telefonia IP y Soluciones Para Centros de Datos Panama,
Republica de Panama Cel Panama. +(507) 6694-4780
------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Astlinux-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.kriscompanies.com/mailman/listinfo/astlinux-users

Donations to support AstLinux are graciously accepted via PayPal to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

_______________________________________________
Astlinux-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.kriscompanies.com/mailman/listinfo/astlinux-users

Donations to support AstLinux are graciously accepted via PayPal to [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]

Reply via email to