I want to add another thing:
http://network.allfaq.org/forums/t/13176.aspx

according to this, one instance of mpg123 running "serves" audio to all people who are attached to that MOH stream.  This seems to scale better, so even though cpu usage may be high for decoding the mp3, it still may be more efficient when there are 2-3 people on hold, instead of the standard MOH decoder serving separate streams to each person.   Not sure if this is accurate but it seems logical.

whew, ouch!!
I tried and failed miserably with this.  I am guessing the problem is mainly I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to compiling. 

I did try to follow the steps from your guide Jason, making adjustments where necessary, and I basically got as far as this:

1) the 'mpg123' entry now appears as an option in make menuconfig
2) the source file is successfully downloaded during compilation
3) the source is extracted and the 'make' command is executed and tries to compile

but I get this error:

make[1]: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

Hmmm.. ok so I guess it needs to be configured.  So I enter into the '/switchfin/build_ip04/mpg123-1.12.3' directory and type './configure'

It goes thru the process and completes successfully.
Now, I go back to /switchfin and type "make mpg123" -- it starts to compile and gets pretty far actually, but finally fails, and I now get this output:

libtool: link:  gcc -shared  .libs/compat.o .libs/parse.o .libs/frame.o .libs/format.o .libs/dct64.o .libs/equalizer.o .libs/id3.o .libs/optimize.o .libs/readers.o .libs/tabinit.o .libs/libmpg123.o .libs/index.o .libs/stringbuf.o .libs/icy.o .libs/icy2utf8.o .libs/ntom.o .libs/synth.o .libs/synth_8bit.o .libs/layer1.o .libs/layer2.o .libs/layer3.o .libs/synth_s32.o .libs/synth_real.o .libs/dct64_i386.o .libs/synth_i586.o .libs/synth_i586_dither.o .libs/dct64_mmx.o .libs/tabinit_mmx.o .libs/synth_mmx.o .libs/synth_3dnow.o .libs/dct64_3dnow.o .libs/equalizer_3dnow.o .libs/dct36_3dnow.o .libs/dct64_3dnowext.o .libs/synth_3dnowext.o .libs/dct36_3dnowext.o .libs/dct64_sse.o .libs/dct64_sse_float.o .libs/synth_sse_float.o .libs/synth_stereo_sse_float.o .libs/synth_sse_s32.o .libs/synth_stereo_sse_s32.o .libs/synth_sse.o .libs/getcpuflags.o .libs/dither.o .libs/feature.o .libs/lfs_wrap.o .libs/lfs_alias.o   -lm    -Wl,-soname -Wl,libmpg123.so.0 -Wl,-version-script -Wl,.libs/libmpg123.ver -o .libs/libmpg123.so.0.25.5

/usr/bin/ld:.libs/libmpg123.ver:2: syntax error in VERSION script

collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

make[4]: *** [libmpg123.la] Error 1

make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/mpg123-1.12.3/src/libmpg123'

make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/mpg123-1.12.3/src'

make[2]: *** [all] Error 2

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/mpg123-1.12.3/src'

make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/mpg123-1.12.3'

make: *** [mpg123] Error 2

[luke@fedora switchfin]$ 

here is where of course I am failing.
I know I probably need to make an 'mpg123.patch' file so that the source will compile for Blackfin.  But I really have no idea what I am doing there.  I looked at the patch that you made for uw-imap but I don't even really know how to "read" those patch files, much less to be able to create the patch needed to get it compiled.   Or maybe I am just missing some libs.

I somehow think that If I was a lot smarter I could get it to compile but I really just don't know where to begin here.  If you can find time to give me any more guidance in this I really do want to learn & help. 

I am attaching my modifications here:
mpg123 mod

(extract into switchfin directory) so you can see what I have done so far (not much I know!!)  Please Help! 

final note:  I was digging around in the uClinux-dist folder and I found that the following other players are already included as part of uClinux dist:

switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/user/madplay

switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/user/mp3play

switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/user/asterisk-addons/format_mp3

switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/user/blkfin-apps/mplayer

Is it trivial to add these in to the build structure?  I mean, is this easier than trying to compile mpg123?  I am just asking, I do not know the exact capabilities of each of these apps.

thanks Jason, I will take a look.
I just edited my previous post, what about those other built in players?
madplay
mp3play
format_mp3
mplayer

any chance those would be easier to integrate?

ok, so i tried to add in modules: 
madplay
mp3play
tone
Mplayer

I successfully comlpeted "make" but "make image" fails, with this error.

/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/user/genext2fs/build-host/genext2fs: couldn't allocate a block (no free space)

make[4]: *** [image.rootfs.ext2.force] Error 1

make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/vendors/Rowetel/IP04'

make[3]: *** [image] Error 2

make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/vendors/Rowetel/IP04'

make[2]: *** [image] Error 2

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist/vendors'

make[1]: *** [image] Error 2

make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/uClinux-dist'

make: [image] Error 2 (ignored)

gcc /home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/package/sources/zeropad.c -o /home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/image_ip04/zeropad -Wall

/home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/image_ip04/zeropad /home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/image_ip04/uImage /home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/image_ip04/fix_image.astfin 0x20000

Error opening /home/luke/Desktop/switchfin/build_ip04/image_ip04/uImage

make: *** [image] Error 1

does it mean that the uImage was too big for the IP02 to hold? I mean is it a fixed maximum size or something?  I don't know how to interpret this error.  The hard drive in my build environment has 23GB free space...

  ok thats what I thought.   is there any way to tell the size of the various packages so I can see which ones are "meaningful" to remove?   do you know of any that are not essential?

nope I dont have Tiff2PDF, in fact I disabled fax detection too, not using any fax related stuff.   I will try to build without mplayer.  too bad we dont have an extra meg or 2 of space for "stuff".   I dont know of any "neater" package than the ip0x (fanless, tiny, low power) but i guess it would be great if Rowetel would refresh the design and maybe beef up the cpu & add some more ram to the mix.  double the ram would really give this some more room to breathe.

do you have any thoughts on Running switchfin on an x86 embedded platform, such as the new Norco 6620-III (PDF datasheet) or Atom D510 Silent Dual-Core Multi LAN M350 Kit.  The D510 (2nd link) has a hardware watchdog-timer which may be useful, as well as 3 gigabit LAN ports... so many possibilities.... 

Both of those are in rugged steel/aluminum cases with no fans (silent) and nice hardware spec.  Yes no FXO/FXS but these can be added fairly easy & cheap via gateways (cheap one for example Grandstream HandyTone HT502 gives you 2 FXS for ~ US$45.

I love switchfin gui and I love that its being actively developed but I am always in the back of my mind worried about aging hardware.

hmm that "sounds easy" hehe.   so to build an asterisk box using one of those Atom systems would I install linux first, then asterisk & then try to load switchfin GUI on top of it ... I mean since they are not flash-based units, you dont build uImage but instead install directly to CF-card, SSD drive etc.  So how would you get GUI 4.0 on there?

ah... ok good to know, I will tuck this away for a later date.  Sticking with the ipXX for now. 

heheh i was abit wrong heres a link to what you want
http://www.ctunion.com/node/228

no luck so far... its very weird I can get madplay to run no problem, and I made a shell script to use 'wget' to pipe the stream to madplay and that seems to work too (no way to test it because there is no console/dsp output on ip0x).   But when I add this config to my musiconhold.conf, it causes my asterisk to die immediately upon startup.

here's what I've got so far:

1) vi /etc/asterisk/mohstream.sh:



#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/wget -q -O - http://216.155.137.148:8004 | /usr/bin/madplay -Q -z -o raw:- --mono -R 8000 -a -12 -



2) chmod +x mohstream.sh



3) edit /etc/asterisk/musiconhold.conf, change default context:



[default]

mode=custom

application=/etc/asterisk/mohstream.sh



4) reboot

when I try running asterisk -vvvvv from console, it dies immediately after the 'parsing musiconhold.conf' .. so it definitely doesn't like something about that file or the streaming.    Not sure where to go next.   I am sure this is possible.... because when I run madplay/wget manually, cpu usage is like 1-2% which is great

yes I do have procwatch installed.... how can I determine if I am really running out of memory?  shouldnt use too much memory, I mean these are 32kbit streams... not sure how much data wget buffers... but is there some way to see free memory on the unit?  or monitor it?

yup that should be heaps

after a bit of testing it seems that madplay is fine and the way it has been implemented is fine but res_musiconhold has an issue with mode=custom

ok I failed with the asterisk 1.6

asterisk 1.6 seems to not play with G729 codec (which I need)
upon reboot after flashing, GUI is dead and asterisk is not running.

I ssh in, and try to start asterisk manually:

root@ip0x:~> asterisk -vvvvv

   |

   | (lines removed)

   |

  == Parsing '/etc/asterisk/phoneprov.conf':   == Found

 res_phoneprov.so => (HTTP Phone Provisioning)

asterisk: can't resolve symbol '_G729AB_DEC_RESET'

root@ip0x:~> cat /etc/asterisk/phoneprov.conf 

[general]

root@ip0x:~> 

ok so, any idea on this one?