First: thanks to all the replies.
You probably already know that these FritzBox DSL modem/router/VoIP
boxes are really embedded Linux PCs, which, in principle at least, are
somewhat hackable. (Your mailheader tells me that you're probably
German, so in case you don't know it, here's a German site about
FritzBox hacking: http://www.wehavemorefun.de/fritzbox/Main_Page )
Well I tried to do just something like this, but unfortunately AVM
(the vendor) does not want these modifications to be done anymore
(thats no reason not doing it, you're right) but as a effect there
has to be done some higher amount of work, which, in my case, i'm not
willing to do, just to have a linux system running almost the way I
want it to run. So I came along with the idea of a OpenBSD system,
since I like it much more than Linux. It's not worth mentioning so,
but I still had this idea of an answering machine (I once wanted to
realize on the FritzBox).
Now I haven't tried this and I personally don't have a FritzBox, but I
wonder whether it might be possible to install OpenBSD on the actual
FritzBox? Probably not right now, because AFAIK the FritzBoxes use the
AR7 CPU ( http://tinyurl.com/37lwuc ) which is probably not compatible
with anything OpenBSD currently runs on. However, if the FritzBox
hardware isn't too blob-infested/undocumented, then that might be an
interesting project. (Again, I'm a non-coder talking out my arse here,
but anyway.) In case OpenBSD did perchance run on this hardware: then
there was a thread recently (
http://marc.info/?t=119204747100007&r=1&w=2 ) about installing OpenBSD
on a Windows box, and in that thread some people contributed useful
info regarding booting OpenBSD from Linux bootloaders. If this AR7
based hardware unexpectedly turns out to be compatible with one of
these http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq1.html#Platforms (ARMish perhaps?)
then that may be a nice upgrade path.
Sorry guys, not me here. I just want a decent system I don't have to
think about. You may saw, I use a Mac... :)
I understand that you're now NOT referring to a PPPoE DSL modem (
http://google.ie/search?q=pppoe+openbsd ), but rather to a
conventional POTS 56k modem.
You're right here. Sorry for the maybe misleading.
With these, I would always advise against
internal or USB-based solutions. If your board has a usable RS-232,
then I'd always recommend getting a proper external modem. It saves
you hassle.
Thanks, I will look after it.
I personally haven't yet played with Asterisk (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk_%28PBX%29 ), but I'm
semi-confident that what you want can be done with it. It is in ports,
and a package is available at least for i386 (
http://www.openbsd.org/4.2_packages/i386/asterisk-1.2.22.tgz-long.html
) and maybe for others archs; I haven't checked.
Well heard about it, but it seemed like a huge overkill to me.
I presume this is what you mean: http://pcengines.ch/alix.htm
I've no experience, but it seems to be a i386 based board, and it
lists OpenBSD as a compatible OS, so that's nice.
I do.
Manuel
