Debian "Etch" + Asterisk + Zaptel + Libpri + mISDN + Asterisk Addons + Asterisk-GUI

This Howto explains how to install Asterisk on a fresh Debian “Etch” system.

After downloading a netinstall image of Debian 4.0r1 and configuring localization, language, partitions and so on, in the final steps, Debian should now be asking you what packages you want to install.

Choose base system only.

After you've finished the installation and rebooted, log in with root and run:

aptitude update
aptitude upgrade

reboot

aptitude install ssh ntp screen

From here, the next steps were done from an ssh session with the putty client. 

Compiling New Custom Kernel *** Optional ***

aptitude install kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot wget bzip2 build-essential

cd /usr/src
wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.23.12.tar.bz2
tar xjf linux-2.6.*
ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.23.12 /usr/src/linux
cd /usr/src/linux

Copy the current kernel configuration to /usr/src/linux:

make clean && make mrproper
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` ./.config
make menuconfig

In the configuration menu, we select "Load alternate configuration..." and choose the config file that we have copied in the /usr/src/linux directory. /usr/src/linux/.config

We are going to modify some parameters in the kernel configuration:

In the subsection "Processor type and features" we check:

"Enable IRQ balancing" is disabled
"Timer frequency" change the value 250 Hz by 1000 Hz.
"High Resolution Timer Option" and "HPET Timer Support" as built-in.
For users with NVidia SATA drives unchek "Paravirtualization Support".

Under "Device Drivers" ---> Character Devices ---> Enchanced Real Time Clock Support. You’ll see that it is built as a module. 

And under "Library Routines" subsection, "CONFIG_CRC_CCITT" must be enabled.

When we have made this changes we save the configuration and exit.

Building the new .deb kernel and headers packages :

make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

After the compilation there will be two .deb packages under directory /usr/src/.

Install the new packages.

cd /usr/src
dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.23.12-custom_2.6.23.12-custom-10.00.Custom_i386.deb
dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.23.12-custom_2.6.23.12-custom-10.00.Custom_i386.deb

reboot

Test if new kernel is running.

uname -a

The output must be something similar to "Linux asterisk 2.6.23.12-custom".

*** Finish *** Optional *** Compiling Custom Kernel