[Asterisk-Users] Fwd: Asterisk on Solaris 10 (AMD Opteron, Sun Fire X2100)

[Alexander Burke]

Hello, Steve!

At 03:55 AM 02/21/2006, you wrote:
>ztdummy was only used for timing. Linux 2.6 provides this function in
>the kernel and I assume Solaris already has timing functions there.

Page 36 of Asterisk: The Future Of Telephony 
(O'Reilly Press) states that you either require a 
Digium PCI card to provide clocking, or ztdummy 
if you "lack the PCI hardware required to provide 
timing". It goes on to mention that a UHCI USB 
controller was required pre-2.6 but now that 
there's a 1kHz clocking source in the kernel, 
ztdummy will attach to that instead, thus 
eliminating the requirement for the UHCI USB controller.

While it doesn't explicity say so, it seems to 
very strongly imply that either a PCI card or 
ztdummy are *required* for some Asterisk 
functionality (namely music-on-hold and 
conferencing, apparently). Is this actually not the case?

Just for reference, here's the section in 
question, verbatim (copy-and-paste from the PDF):

The ztdummy Driver
In Asterisk, certain applications and features 
require a timing device in order to operate
(Asterisk won’t even compile them if no timing device is found). All Digium PCI
hardware provides a 1-kHz timing interface. If 
you lack the PCI hardware required to
provide timing, the ztdummy driver can be used as 
a timing device. On Linux 2.4 kernel–
based distributions, ztdummy must use the clocking provided by the UHCI USB
controller. The driver looks to see that the 
usb-uhci module is loaded and that the kernel
version is at least 2.4.5. Older kernel versions are incompatible with ztdummy.
On a 2.6 kernel–based distribution, ztdummy does not require the use of the USB
controller. (As of v2.6.0, the kernel now 
provides 1-kHz timing with which the driver
can interface; thus, the USB controller hardware 
requirement is no longer necessary.)
The default Makefile configuration does not create ztdummy. To compile ztdummy,
you must remove a comment marker from the 
Makefile. Open it in your favorite text
editor and look for the following line:
MODULES=zaptel tor2 torisa wcusb wcfxo wctdm \
ztdynamic ztd-eth wct1xxp wct4xxp wcte11xp # ztdummy
Remove the hash* (#) symbol from in front of 
“ztdummy,” save the file, and compile
Zaptel as usual.

--
Alexander Burke, A+, CCNA
Kingston, Ontario, Canada