Re: mISDN2 supported hardware

On 12/02/2012 02:31 PM, Jacek Konieczny wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We have chosen MISDN2 as the ISDN framework of choice for our products
> (Linux-based PBX), as:
>
> 1. it is included in the upstream kernel

While that may be nice the mISDNv2 drivers can also be built in a 
separate tree outside of the kernel. I would use the most stable and 
suitable kernel I can find and not the one that is convenient because it 
has the drivers included. Customers tend to expect (demand) that a PBX 
be very reliable so a boring reliable proven kernel is what I would choose.

> 2. hardware information is discoverable from userspace (Zaptel/DAHDi
> drivers required hardware settings known and configured before the
> modules have been loaded).

Maybe I misunderstood but I always had to configure both DAHDI (zaptel 
is EOL), Sangoma and mISDN so don't see the advantage.

> 3. easy, mostly hardware-independent, configuration (vendor-specific
> drivers and many DADHDi drivers need special coding for specific device)

Not to be dense but aren't drivers hardware-dependent? Why else would 
you need them? :-) Not sure what you mean with "special coding". If you 
use Digium cards and DAHDI drivers then there is no need for patches. 
Just configure, start and use. The same goes for Sangoma and mISDN.

> The idea was: we are coding our system for mISDN and we can connect any
> mISDN-compatible device.  Everything would be great… if we only had any
> devices working with the upstream drivers.

Get an ISDN card with a Cologne HFC chip on it (I'm not sure if the XHFC 
chips are supported yet). You can recognize the chip because it has a 
picture of the Cologne Cathedral towers on it as can be seen here: 
http://www.rjsystems.nl/img/ccd_hfc-s_pci_a_2bds0_251-fthr.jpg
http://www.stedentipsvoortrips.nl/duitsland/Keulen.dom.jpg

> We have been trying to use OpenVOX cards, but even their PCI-ids were
> not included in mISDN drivers. Just adding the IDs gave only basic
> functionality. LEDs were not working properly, and we couldn't even hope
> for using the hardware echo cancellation modules.

Afaik the OpenVox cards use DAHDI drivers (may need patches). In the 
past they used mISDNv1 and Bristuff. Check the download section on their 
website where most mISDN patches/code all seem to be for mISDNv1.

> We was able to get some mISDN2 drivers from OpenVOX… but that was just
> a tarball of some ancient Linux kernel, patched to support an OpenVOX
> card, but nothing else (the hfcmulti driver was patched for OpenVOX
> without really caring about how other devices would be broken). We have
> tried to apply the OpenVOX changes to mISDN code… but the result is not
> very maintainable.

Afaik most mISDN patches/code from OpenVox is for mISDNv1 not mISDNv2. 
See for example: http://downloads.openvox.cn/pub/drivers/mISDN/
These days OpenVox offers patched DAHDI drivers for their cards.

> Is there any list of mISDN2 compatible hardware? Are there any devices
> currently on the market known to work properly with mISDN2?

Afaik any card with a Cologne ISDN chip which i supported by mISDNv2. 
Code including PCI ids can probably be found here:
http://misdn.eu/?p=projects/mISDN.git;a=tree;f=drivers/isdn/hardware/mISDN;h=edc09d04f6251401273f7804d312a9b641754c39;hb=HEAD

 > Is any
> hardware vendor providing mISDN2 drivers for his hardware and _current_
> Linux kernels?

Afaik Karsten (and others?) has made a ton of effort to get the mISDNv2 
drivers included in the upstream kernel. So if you want to use those 
mISDNv2 drivers then you need to find an mISDNv2 compatible ISDN card. 
If you want to use OpenVox cards then you need to use DAHDI.

> I am mostly interested in PRI and multi-port BRI cards.

If you want to use mISDNv2 then talk to the company whose products the 
mISDNv2 drivers were written for: Cologne Chip. Their website can be 
found at http://www.colognechip.com/

Finally, you did not mention which software you will be using. If you 
want to use FreeSWITCH then mISDNv2 based cards will probably not work 
as last time I asked FreeSWITCH did not have mISDNv2 support.

Regards,
Patrick