[LUAU] A better flavor of Asterisk and a great little box

[Jeff Mings]

Hi All!

     I spend a lot of time looking for better solutions for my clients 
and I'd like to share a couple to save other out there some time.

     Everyone has heard of Asterisk, the excellent and incredibly 
versatile communications server, but most think that you still have to 
configure it through arcane config files that have a very long and steep 
learning curve.  I looked at and tried many interface alternatives, like 
Asterisk GUI, PBX-in-a-flash, and various others.  FreePBX really seems 
to be the best way to setup an Asterisk box, by a wide margin.  It is in 
very active development, with lots of users and forum info.  The 
front-end organizes the conf files in particular ways and keeps a lot of 
stuff in MySQL databases, so you won't be able to tweak certain .conf 
files by hand, but that shouldn't be a problem for most.

     Bear in mind that Asterisk, as a communications server, is a lot 
like Apache, the HTTP server we all know.  It's extremely powerful, but 
very empty when you first install it.  FreePBX is a little like a 
content management system like Drupal or WordPress, but for Asterisk 
instead of Apache.  It simplifies a lot of stuff, but, still lets you 
have all of the options you would have without it.

     Faced with a sudden need to implement PBX alternatives for a few 
clients with 5 or 6 locations, FreePBX is the way to go.

     I also discovered a ridiculously cheap and capable little box for 
fast Linux deployment:  Acer's Veriton N2620G, which is selling for 
about $280, including shipping, at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103785
It's quite a bit faster than the Atom-based tiny boxes.  It comes with 
Linpus Linux, but I've been installing CentOS on them.  You DO need to 
know the following trick:  when installing a distro, you will probably 
need to pass the i915.modeset=0 or nomodeset kernel parameters when 
booting from install CD, or you will likely get a confused and flashing 
display.
     I've deployed a couple of them and they look like they're going to 
be great boxes.

Good luck,
-Jeff