John,
all I need now is to change our panasonic PBX with a more modern and customizable PBX that's why we think to use Asterisk on out linux box. The problem is to set up the hardware stuff....I first bought a TDM400P card but then I realized I could use a different and more scalable solution based on our LAN. I thought I could only buy 3 or 4 IP phones, connect them in our HUB, configure Asterisk and then all I had to do was learning managing Asterisk to have always more services (voiceboxes, transfer call, etc) but it doesn't seem so easy. John, you said to set up a completely switched network and put the phones on a separate VLAN. What if I shouldn't use a vlan? Is it optional or it is only a matter of performance? If I should decide to use a VLAN I should buy a special switch, right? I don't know how to configure a VLAN...it is something to be configured in the switch or ...where (maybe inside linux or asterisk??) And what about power over ethernet?? Is the power provided by the switch? Alternatively I could use normal ethernet and buy self-powered phones, right? Sorry to disturb you but I found nothihg in wiki-asterisk about switch telephony hw and nothing in internet about how to build a VoIP net from scratch.
(If you know a site you know where I can find all these infos I would avoid to disturb all the people here in this group).
Thank you very much.
DummyBoy