Ubuntu Installation

What is Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is a complete desktop Linux operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.

• Ubuntu will always be free of charge, and there is no extra fee for the “enterprise edition”, we make our very best work available to everyone on the same Free terms.
• Ubuntu includes the very best in translations and accessibility infrastructure that the Free Software community has to offer, to make Ubuntu usable by as many people as possible.
• Ubuntu is shipped in stable and regular release cycles; a new release will be shipped every six months. You can use the current stable release or the current development release. A release will be supported for 18 months.
• Ubuntu is entirely committed to the principles of open source software development; we encourage people to use open source software, improve it and pass it on.

Ubuntu is suitable for both desktop and server use. The current Ubuntu release supports Intel x86 (IBM-compatible PC), AMD64 (Hammer) and PowerPC (Apple iBook and Powerbook, G4 and G5) architectures.


Ubuntu includes more than 1000 pieces of software, starting with the Linux kernel version 2.6 and GNOME 2.30, and covering every standard desktop application from word processing and spreadsheet applications to internet access applications, web server software, email software, programming languages and tools and of course several games.

Getting Ubuntu

For information on how to download Ubuntu from the Internet, see the download web page. The list of Ubuntu mirrors contains a full set of official Ubuntu mirrors, so you can easily find the nearest one.

Ubuntu can be upgraded after installation very easily. The installation procedure will help set up the system so that you can make those upgrades once installation is complete, if need be.

System Requirements

Installation

Insert your installation CD into your CD-ROM drive and reboot the computer. The installation system is started immediately when booting from the CD-ROM. Once initialized, your first screen will appear.

At this point, read the text on the screen. You may want to read the help screen provided by the

installation system. To do this, press F1.

To perform a default server installation, select “Install to the hard disk” and press Enter. The

installation process will be started. Simply follow the on-screen instructions, and your Ubuntu system will be installed.

Ubuntu is one of the few Linux distributions out there that will not enable the root account. If you want to do something with root permission on the console you have to type sudo before the command.

Sudo” means superuser do. “sudo” will prompt for “Password:”. Please specify user password

As you have noticed during the Ubuntu installation there was no question about the root password, as you might have been used to see during other Linux distribution installation process. Because of this your root account is inactive.

If you want to enable root account (which is not recommended) enter the following command.

$sudo passwd root

This will prompt for a new root password and once you confirm it, you can start using the root account to login

Apt-Get

The apt-get command is a powerful command-line tool used to work with Ubuntu's Advanced

Packaging Tool (APT) performing such functions as installation of new software packages, upgrade

of existing software packages, updating of the package list index, and even upgrading the entire

Ubuntu system.

Being a simple command-line tool, apt-get has numerous advantages over other package management tools available in Ubuntu for server administrators. Some of these advantages include ease of use over simple terminal connections (SSH) and the ability to be used in system administration scripts, which can in turn be automated by the cron scheduling utility.

Some examples of popular uses for the apt-get utility:

• Install a Package: Installation of packages using the apt-get tool is quite simple. For example, to install the editor vim, type the following:

 #apt-get install vim

• Remove a Package: Removal of a package or packages is also a straightforward and simple

process. To remove the vim package installed in the previous example, type the following:

 #apt-get remove vim

Update the Package Index: The APT package index is essentially a database of available

packages from the repositories defined in the /etc/apt/sources. list file. To update the local

package index with the latest changes made in repositories, type the following:

 #apt-get update

• Upgrade Packages: Over time, updated versions of packages currently installed on your computer may become available from the package repositories (for example security updated). To upgrade your system, first update your package index as outlined above, and then type:

 #apt-get upgrade

If a package needs to install or remove new dependencies when being upgraded, it will not be

upgraded by the upgrade command. For such an upgrade, it is necessary to use the dist-upgrade

command.

For further information about the use of APT, read the comprehensive Debian APT User Manual

[http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#apt-howto] or type:

#apt-get help

Asterisk2billing releases new version 1.4-RC1

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Recently received an email from a2billing regarding their new version.


Asterisk2Billing is proud to release the latest version of A2Billing
1.4-RC1 at http://www.asterisk2billing.org. We urge you to download and
install it and see all the new features which we hope in turn provide
benefits resulting in greater margins and profitability for all our
customers.

There are some excellent new features in the new version including the much
requested commission agent or reseller functionality, re-designed
invoicing, and a raft of other features, as well as efficiency savings made
to the underlying database, which will increase the scalability of
A2Billing. For more details see the changelog at :
http://www.asterisk2billing.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/browser/trunk/CHANGELOG

We have also slightly altered the direction of A2Billing to cater for the
increasing number of customers who are using A2Billing to provide VoIP
termination and origination such as DID resale to businesses using IP PBX
systems, as well as those offering wholesale termination. We have now
included better invoicing, company information, and a basic trouble ticket
tracker as well as making the system more user friendly for the staff that
have to manage your customers. Naturally, A2Billing is still a very
competent calling card platform.


We have also done a lot of integration work with Opensips (Openser) to
increase the scalability of the system, and OpenSIPS can now integrate
seamlessly with A2Billing to provide load balancing, NAT traversal and
failover, which is of particular relevance to those providing VoIP services
to the residential market.

We have put a guide to install A2Billing on either CentOS and Debian on the
Wiki at :

http://www.asterisk2billing.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/A2Billing-1-4-Installation-deb


We need as many eyes as possible to look at it so that this release can be
the best ever; and talking of best ever, Alberto Escudero-Pascual from
http://www.it46.se/ is writing the documentation right now, so we fully
expect that to be of the highest quality based on the work we have seen him
do in the past.

To coincide with the release of A2Billing 1.4 final release in a few weeks
time, after the beta testing and release candidate stages, we are launching
www.star2billing.com.

Star2Billing is the commercial arm of Asterisk2Billing, and has been
created to supply professional install, support and consultancy services to
A2Billing, which we hope will mean that any Telecoms Company can consider
the A2Billing Soft Switch alongside the traditional offerings for TDM and
VoIP switches.

There will be Distributor, Reseller and Agent schemes for Star2Billing yet
to be announced. During these credit crunch times, Commercial Open Source
Telephony has become a very popular option amongst companies according to a
recent Eastern Management Group Report.

For now, we hope that you will download the Beta version of A2Billing 1.4,
test it and comment on it, so that when we release the final version it
will be of the highest possible commercial quality.



Yours truly,
Areski and the A2Billing Team