3.7. Installing Additional Prompts

Additional prompts are installed via the menuselect application in your Asterisk source directory. There are three sets of audio packages, named Core Sounds Packages, Extras Sounds Packages, and Music On Hold File Packages. Each set of packages are broken down into different formats (and the Core Sounds Packages are available in multiple languages). Using the menuselect application, you can select combinations of audio packages for use in your environment. Some of the formats available include:

WAV
μlaw
alaw
GSM
G.729
G.722 (wideband, 16bit)

As of this writing, the Core Sounds Packages are available In the following languages:

English
Spanish
French

	Warning
	Selecting any sounds in menuselect will cause the system to download the files from the Digium FTP server upon install. The size of these files range anywhere from 2MB to 27MB, so be aware of this when installing offline, or on slow and expensive links.

Other Useful Add-ons

The asterisk-addons package contains code to allow the storage of Call Detail Records (CDRs) to a MySQL database. There is also code that allows Asterisk to natively play MP3s (which we don't recommend unless you have a powerful system with very few phones on it). Some folks may also be interested in the interpreter that allows you to load Perl code into memory for the life of an Asterisk process (which can be very helpful if you have a large number of AGI calls to the perl interpreter). Programs are placed into asterisk-addons when there are licensing issues preventing them from being implemented directly into the Asterisk source code, or when they are not considred mature enough to be integrated with Asterisk.

The http://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/g729/ directory contains the code and registration program for the proprietary G.729A codec . If you install the g729 sounds packages, Asterisk will be able to communicate with devices which natively support the G.729A codec, but will not be able to transcode between other codecs and G.729A until a license is obtained to use it.