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Have not played with one of these but I have several A and B+ being used daily.

  One is my voip system using Nerd Vittles PIAF http://nerdvittles.com/?p=1015...

The other does my weather station
http://weewx.com/

The other does my BBQ controller
https://github.com/CapnBry/Hea...

Sure there are many more uses.
The new board may save a bit in my new builds will see...

All running quite fine...

So yes they have their place, low power, and reliable, no fan.

The Raspberry Pi series is an awesome hobbyist device

From my perspective, this announcement puts the Raspberry Pi squarely in the Big Leagues. I've played around with Asterisk and also NeoRouter VPN Server using my original Pi, and this is perfect hardware for these critical tasks. Another one is as an Intrusion Detection System (IDS). The Asterisk/FreePBX can appreciate the extra horsepower this new development affords and should run fine. Not much more than a month ago, this CuBox-i4PRO won a nice end-of-year Best Of recommendation, ...while this new Raspberry Pi spec actually meets this PBX's minimum spec handily.

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=1037...

How does asterisk even work from the hardware side? I looked at their site and they just have software instructions. Is there some physical card or box that interfaces computers to landline phones?

Read a bit more to find out. In short, it is a bunch of software that does the same thing that commercial phone switch does. "Phone switch" being a PBX or Private Branch Exchange - The kind of phone system you would find at a business. The phone switch you set up (Asterisk or otherwise) has connections to individual landlines via interface hardware, or you can have it talk directory to VoIP providers. There are several software distributions that make setting it up easy. PBX in a Flash is one. Nerd Vittles has a good getting started guide.

You mean Lenny?

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=6762

Here's code that will, along with an asterisk server implementation: http://nerdvittles.com/?p=5321

Since he already has a (SIP-compatible) Droid smartphone, and he knows about the Raspberry Pi already, get that old fart into low energy server-connectivity pronto I say!

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=3026

Charge him up with credit from 12voipand that that man go.

That is pretty darn near perfect! Thanks. One of my Christmas projects is building asterisk servers to run as documented 'answering machines' associated with a www.12voip.com SIP account. Kudos!

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=1784

Also, I'm thinking about moving away from a conventional dd-wrt Broadcom router setup and using a Pi as a firewall. Bringing down the cost helps buy a bunch of these, and saves electricity in the long run, and hopefully improves the firewall security too.

Or you can go really all out: Incredible PBX, and have a complete PBX system with only the need of an internet connection.

Till it was reaffirmed for me that AT&T is an ass-hole company on par with Bank of America, and won't sell dry loops for DSL unless you have some other service with them, I was considering the upcoming bandwidth caps they are putting in place as an excuse to move to a non-major Telco like DSL Extreme and use the above to replace the phone line.

However now it looks like I'll have to keep a basic line alive just to get the DSL loop, so it's looking more like it'll just be a 'geek' project once I find suitable hardware for it.

You can do this without the Bluetooth peering using a VoIP box.

Both the iPad and iPod touch can make calls via wifi (or via iPad 3g) using SIP compatible VOIP clients, to the best of my knowledge, (I've never used these apple products) Here's a nice review of iOS clients, and from a really neat site with its own tricked-out user friendly Asterisk PBX distribution called PBX-in-a-flash.

Yes, it's called Asterisk, but it requires more than a box you buy at a retail store. You can share a phone book and click-to-dial (Asteridex) based on entries in MySQL. It supports about every feature you can think of for the phone, from wake-up calls to auto-forwarding. Get a VOIP trunk running SIP and you'll also pay far less for phone service. You still need a tiny server running Linux, some IP phones, or an analog card, but you'll have total control and all the features you want. Personally, I like FreePBX (http://freepbx.org), and there are even easier-to-setup versions such as the distro at http://nerdvittles.com/.

But in all seriousness, it'll be nice to have a rule that auto-directs calls to my cell when I'm out of the office.

You can do that with Asterisk and some imagination

Another one that seems to be gaining a lot of traction and backed by a lot of online help, is PBX in a Flash - it is created and supported by Nerd Vittles.

They have loads of info on their site, including the obvious requests, like how to setup a new system quick & easy, what phones to look for, what hardware cards or peripherals to use to interface with POTS lines, as well as a list of VoIP providers that they have reviewed and recommend (or don't,) which you can read at Providers - The Best of Nerd Vittles

They also have some stuff you might not think of, such as setting up services on your Asterisk box to tell you the weather report for a zipcode you enter on your phone's keypad, or "MailCall" which allows you to get your e-mail via the phone, or a telephone reminder system... there are lots of options, and you can find out about most of them at Applications - The Best of Nerd Vittles

There are also forums for lots of this stuff:
Nerd Vittles Forum
Voxilla VoIP Forum
PBX in a Flash Script Site

And, of course, the venerable VoIP Wiki at voip-info.org

Another one that seems to be gaining a lot of traction and backed by a lot of online help, is PBX in a Flash - it is created and supported by Nerd Vittles.

They have loads of info on their site, including the obvious requests, like how to setup a new system quick & easy, what phones to look for, what hardware cards or peripherals to use to interface with POTS lines, as well as a list of VoIP providers that they have reviewed and recommend (or don't,) which you can read at Providers - The Best of Nerd Vittles

They also have some stuff you might not think of, such as setting up services on your Asterisk box to tell you the weather report for a zipcode you enter on your phone's keypad, or "MailCall" which allows you to get your e-mail via the phone, or a telephone reminder system... there are lots of options, and you can find out about most of them at Applications - The Best of Nerd Vittles

There are also forums for lots of this stuff:
Nerd Vittles Forum
Voxilla VoIP Forum
PBX in a Flash Script Site

And, of course, the venerable VoIP Wiki at voip-info.org

Another one that seems to be gaining a lot of traction and backed by a lot of online help, is PBX in a Flash - it is created and supported by Nerd Vittles.

They have loads of info on their site, including the obvious requests, like how to setup a new system quick & easy, what phones to look for, what hardware cards or peripherals to use to interface with POTS lines, as well as a list of VoIP providers that they have reviewed and recommend (or don't,) which you can read at Providers - The Best of Nerd Vittles

They also have some stuff you might not think of, such as setting up services on your Asterisk box to tell you the weather report for a zipcode you enter on your phone's keypad, or "MailCall" which allows you to get your e-mail via the phone, or a telephone reminder system... there are lots of options, and you can find out about most of them at Applications - The Best of Nerd Vittles

There are also forums for lots of this stuff:
Nerd Vittles Forum
Voxilla VoIP Forum
PBX in a Flash Script Site

And, of course, the venerable VoIP Wiki at voip-info.org

Another one that seems to be gaining a lot of traction and backed by a lot of online help, is PBX in a Flash - it is created and supported by Nerd Vittles.

They have loads of info on their site, including the obvious requests, like how to setup a new system quick & easy, what phones to look for, what hardware cards or peripherals to use to interface with POTS lines, as well as a list of VoIP providers that they have reviewed and recommend (or don't,) which you can read at Providers - The Best of Nerd Vittles

They also have some stuff you might not think of, such as setting up services on your Asterisk box to tell you the weather report for a zipcode you enter on your phone's keypad, or "MailCall" which allows you to get your e-mail via the phone, or a telephone reminder system... there are lots of options, and you can find out about most of them at Applications - The Best of Nerd Vittles

There are also forums for lots of this stuff:
Nerd Vittles Forum
Voxilla VoIP Forum
PBX in a Flash Script Site

And, of course, the venerable VoIP Wiki at voip-info.org

A hardware suggestion - Digium TDM400P (1 Port FXS). Would allow you to route incoming POTS calls into your asterisk box. To be honest, I would check your internet connection if it has enough throughput and just run everything voip. (there were some other postings on how to check if you have enough) This is a pretty informative site. http://nerdvittles.com/

Sometime back, I stumbled upon this iphone+bluetooth+asterisk combo app (though works for any bt-phone) and was surprised by the power of asterisk.. From curiosity, How easy is it to set up an asterisk for personal purpose at home? Anyone implemented a setup and care to share some opinions?

This clever software should have been reviewed by senior management before it ever saw the light of day. The episode gives all of us a golden opportunity to stop and think about what we're doing and what our fundamental obligations are to those who use our code. Hopefully, Fonality will turn this BOT off... permanently! The problem, of course, is that it's hard to unring a bell. This BOT is already in the wild. Luckily there's a very quick solution in this case. Here's the command that should be added to tomorrow morning's Fonality script: rm -f /var/adm/bin/registry.pl. We'll all sleep better.

In the above thread it is mentioned that FreePBX phone's home as well. Instead of splitting hairs over definitions, let me make it perfectly clear what FreePBX does. Most of you are aware of our Online Module Repository that provides easy updates to new versions of FreePBX and its modules (vs. pulling tarballs manually).

"my VoIP server is NOT on the Internet nor will I do so for privacy and security reasons!"
Call me Mr Obvious.. if it is a VoIP server it IS on the internet :)
I know what you mean though.. having part of the pbx hosted out on the internet never appealed to me either.

I second your recommendation about the new http://www.nerdvittles.com/ distro.
I jumped the Trixbox ship 8 months or so ago when they introduced 'Trixbox Pro'.
There is more of a community around the new nerdvittles release than there was with Trixbox;
it is more like asterisk@home was like a few years ago but with the goal of being stable.
While Trixbox has a forum/etc the community itself wasn't involved in it's development much and releases.
Maybe all of this negative attention will get the folks behind Trixbox to realize a few things :)

I tried out Trixbox Pro not that long ago but was really turned off by their premise that you must have Internet access to properly configure your server (my VoIP server is NOT on the Internet nor will I do so for privacy and security reasons!). And their appliance is expensive and still needs Internet connectivity. While their old-school Trixbox CE product doesn't have this limitation development on it has slowed down despite their claims of "it's still in development, really!".

AsteriskNOW isn't ready for prime-time yet, though it shows promise long-term.

If you don't want to compile Asterisk yourself and yet you still want to use FreePBX (and you really should!), I highly recommend you check out Nerd Vittles, http://www.nerdvittles.com/ instead -- everything that Trixbox CE could have been.

Sorry folks, but for my time and money, I want total client/server control. So I'll go to Nerd Vittles and download myself a Trixbox (in a CentOS VMware image). It'll do it all, and the docs there are great, including how to migrate to real hardware should you want.

For SIP (etc.) clients, I'll take a Nokia N95 please, which is a fancier version than the nearly 1.5 year old Nokia N80i, but with better specs.: DVD video plus GPS/maps. (Otherwise, the N80i, for about 375 euros) will connect you via 802.11 to your Trixbox, plus offers a 3.2 MP camera, good video, and syncs to Lotus Notes or Outlook (but using Windows software, I have yet try; the N95 is yet-to-be released). For client-side software, go to Project Gizmoand get your SIP client for your little phone.

Notes these phones will not be bundled with any carrier plans.

You can't be ahead of the curve if you're stuck in a loop.

Using bluetooth proximity detection, automatically forward calls to the *right* place rather than just guessing. When you're at your desk, your computer detects your bluetooth phone and routes calls to your desk. When you leave, your computer detects the lack of your phone and forwards calls to your cell. When you get home, your computer there picks up your cell and routes calls to your home phone. Yes, with asterisk.

http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=78

-ben

http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=148 (Too lazy to do a proper link tonight).

Asterisk *will* be part of the next list guaranteed. It's just hasn't had press aknowledgement except for a couple of Business Week articles. It's too early to pronounce it as changing the telephony landscape, because it is currently in the process of doing so.

It's only been, what, 18 months since 1.0.9 was released, the first "ready for prime time" version?

Everytime I see someone mention Asterisk on /. there are responses like "wtf is this" so here is what the big deal is about I read that as some 5 million odd hits

And as to how this is different than Skype, well, essentially, you can plug it into anything. Asterisk interoperates with 15 of 20 items on TFA's list. (skype support is being worked on I hear as is the GoogleTalk protocol) And that leads to uber cool shit like this being possible

Depends on what you consider an application. I'm pretty sure http://asterisk.org/ has a few months on you.

Yes, but does it run on Windows? :-/

Yes, it does. Kinda.