[VoIP] AstLinux

[John Novack]

I now have AstLinux up and working on an older HP thin Client, Model 5520
This machine has 4 USB ports, an Ethernet port, a PS/2 keyboard and a 
VGA video card built in, along with a sound card.
The flash is 64 Meg, with 128 Meg of ram. The ram is fixed, the flash 
can also be replaced, with a 2.5 inch hard drive, if one has a 2.5 inch 
hard drive cable similar to the much more common 3.5 inch IDE cable. The 
flash unplugs and this cable plugs onto the pins on the board. This has 
an 800 Mhz , Pentium look alike processor.
There are other models in this series, one, the 5515 also has one PCI 
slot, which would require a riser as no PCI card will fit onto it as 
built. There were some on eBay some time back, and the 5000 series Thin 
clients show up from time to time as well.  This series all use a 12VDC 
3 Amp power supply, and are often found with the power supply missing.
There is also the 5700 series, with more of everything, but they are 
more expensive on eBay and I have not been ready to pay the higher 
price, yet. This one came to me in the $30-40 price range, with 
shipping, including a power supply. There were some that went begging 
because the seller was unaware that one could clear the password by 
simply removing the 3V battery out of its clip, causing the machine to 
default to factory settings.

There are other thin clients around, but they need at least 48 Meg of 
flash for AstLinux, and not all are removable or replaceable, so if you 
want to try this adventure, watch for that.

You can also boot and run off a USB pen drive, assuming the machine will 
support that. The HP 5000 series will as well.
I did have to jump through some hoops to get AstLinux onto the flash, as 
the normal procedure for installation fails when attempting to boot of 
of a CD rom. It progresses to a point, then says it doesn't ( no longer 
) understand the CD-ROM format!  Interestingly enough, other Linux 
versions do boot. DSL ( Damn Small Linux ) does, but it would take a 
Linux Guru to figure out how to get more standard Asterisk to run on DSL.
I am going to try again, on a different machine, and take better notes 
this time.

AstLinux is pretty nice, in my configuration the base system is on 
flash, and the configurations and VM files are on a 1 gig memory stick, 
so one could have different configurations to play with and simply 
reboot with a different pen drive.

Since my regular Asterisk box has developed HD problems, I brought this 
on line last evening, with some of the original configuration features 
missing, but enough to communicate on Cnet, and I THINK my portal works, 
though I have yet to try that.

Some sound files are missing as well. Why AstLinux doesn't supply all 
the ones usually found I can't say, but there it is.
This setup is one step above the "Asterisk on a Router" configuration, 
but still no moving parts.

John Novack

-- 
Dog is my co-pilot