[Asterisk-Users] OT: AstLinux 0.2.2 released

[Kristian Kielhofner]

C. Tomlinson wrote:
> This looks a great little distro, I will definitely try it if I have the
> need for a solid state machine.
> 
> Most modern systems are capable of booting from USB stick; would this be
> possible, instead of CF? One stick for astlinux, and another for conf files?
> 
> 
> It strikes me that the mini-itx via systems might be a good alternative if
> the soekris board is not available to people? 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> C

C,

	It certainly is possible.  AstLinux was originally targeted for Soekris 
Net4801 and other SC1100 SBC's.  They do not support booting from USB. 
Minimally, you would have to create an initd or recompile the kernel 
with USB support to do this.  Although I like the idea, I have some 
reservations of running the entire system from USB.  There are a lot of 
reasons to not do this.

	Your best bet is to get a IDE -> CF adapter.  I have one that I got for 
$10 dollars and allows a standard machine to boot from the Compact Flash 
card, as it does IDE emulation and looks like another hard drive.  Very, 
very simple.  You can then use a USB stick for your voicemail, etc.

	Also, currently if you have more than one USB stick attached to a 
machine, it is not terribly easy to tell them apart from one another. 
It could be sda, or sdb.  I could think of some ways around this, but I 
don't know if it is worth it.  Who knows though, I originally HATED the 
idea of running a web server within AstLinux, and now I have included 
one with PHP!

--
Kristian Kielhofner