Re:Ask HN: Prove me wrong: email ain't dying
by isomorphic on Friday March 27, 2015 @03:53AM
(#9275122)
Years ago I tried configuring Asterisk and was defeated. Well, not completely defeated as I got it "working," but I couldn't claim to truly understand the configuration.
Asterisk's configuration system isn't the worst thing I've seen, but it reminds me of Sendmail, which (if you don't know) is not a polite thing to say.
Of course now there are probably glossy Asterisk distros you can run in a VM and configure via WUI. But I'm obstinate enough that I want to understand the text config.
There is also FreePBX, but I know nothing about it.
Even further off topic, I'd recommend the Obihai boxes as a cheap way to get started. No affiliation, I just have an OBi110. It's about as easy to configure as Asterisk itself. (Why is all this VoIP kit horrible to set up?) However, Obi has a through-the-web quick configuration that will hook it up to Google Voice with no other hardware/software. That alone is worth the price of the box (which occasionally goes on sale). ~US$40 flat and Google Voice gets you free phone calls in the USA.
Asterisk's configuration system isn't the worst thing I've seen, but it reminds me of Sendmail, which (if you don't know) is not a polite thing to say.
Of course now there are probably glossy Asterisk distros you can run in a VM and configure via WUI. But I'm obstinate enough that I want to understand the text config.
There is also FreePBX, but I know nothing about it.
Even further off topic, I'd recommend the Obihai boxes as a cheap way to get started. No affiliation, I just have an OBi110. It's about as easy to configure as Asterisk itself. (Why is all this VoIP kit horrible to set up?) However, Obi has a through-the-web quick configuration that will hook it up to Google Voice with no other hardware/software. That alone is worth the price of the box (which occasionally goes on sale). ~US$40 flat and Google Voice gets you free phone calls in the USA.