Compiling Asterisk for ASUS Platforms

[gatorback]

should be

I guess?
the ' is not required as far as I'm aware

I'm at work currently and I have no linux to check it atm

I tried the suggestion to remove the single quote character ['] around the directory:

./configure --prefix=/opt --host=mipsel-linux --disable-xmldoc --srcdir=/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0
configure: WARNING: you should use --build, --host, --target
configure: WARNING: invalid host type: 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0
configure: error: cannot find sources (main/asterisk.c) in /opt/brcm/Asterisk

Unfortunately, the same error persists. I also tried not use the ' and adding a \ before the space in the directory. This made things worse:

[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# ./configure --prefix=/opt --host=mipsel-linux --disable-xmldoc --srcdir=/opt/brcm/Asterisk\ 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0
configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... mipsel-unknown-linux-gnu
configure: error: cannot find install-sh, install.sh, or shtool in `pwd` "."/`pwd`

I think that you are right and that the single quotes are not needed.

I noticed that having a space in the directory name can causes interesting problems. This can be resolved by placing the directory in single quotes or placing a \ before a space character:

[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# cd /
[root@mythtv /]# cd /opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0
-bash: cd: /opt/brcm/Asterisk: No such file or directory
[root@mythtv /]# cd '/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0'
[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# pwd
/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0

[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# cd /
[root@mythtv /]# cd /opt/brcm/Asterisk\ 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0
[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# pwd
/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0

I also tried adding a / to the end of the directory but this only made things worse:

[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# ./configure --prefix=/opt --host=mipsel-linux --disable-xmldoc --srcdir='/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0/'
configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... mipsel-unknown-linux-gnu
configure: error: cannot find install-sh, install.sh, or shtool in `pwd` "."/`pwd`
[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# ./configure --prefix=/opt --host=mipsel-linux --disable-xmldoc --srcdir=/opt/brcm/Asterisk\ 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0/
configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... mipsel-unknown-linux-gnu
configure: error: cannot find install-sh, install.sh, or shtool in `pwd` "."/`pwd`
[root@mythtv asterisk-1.8.5.0]# ./configure --prefix=/opt --host=mipsel-linux --disable-xmldoc --srcdir=/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0/
configure: WARNING: you should use --build, --host, --target
configure: WARNING: invalid host type: 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0/
configure: error: cannot find sources (main/asterisk.c) in /opt/brcm/Asterisk

@wpte: in your first reponse, you recommended:

this configure is probably a good start for compiling, but you need a lot of libraries...
I'd recommend you just use ipkg packages to get the correct header files, otherwise it's madness to compile everything yourself

I did not do this (because I have not figured out how): could this (lack of correct header files) be the cause of the configure errors?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

@wpte: I appreciate you taking the time to look at my questions.

[wpte]

ok... so actually, you don't need to use "--srcdir=/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0" at all, it auto detects that...

so, you only have to compile asterisk and the required libraries, or just grab the headers from the ipkg package.
If I recall correctly, ncurses doesn't come with headers in ipkg tho...

so you can just grab the packages here: http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/op.../cross/stable/
and since they are actually .tar.gz archives you can open them on linux quite easily

after you placed the headers somewhere on your pc, you can use a configure parameter to point to the headers. you don't want to install them in the regular folders I guess

usually the parameter is something like:

--with-packagename=/path/to
--with-ncurses=/path/to/curses

etc.

[gatorback]

ok... so actually, you don't need to use "--srcdir=/opt/brcm/Asterisk 1.8.5.0/asterisk-1.8.5.0" at all, it auto detects that...

so, you only have to compile asterisk and the required libraries, or just grab the headers from the ipkg package.
If I recall correctly, ncurses doesn't come with headers in ipkg tho...

so you can just grab the packages here: http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/op.../cross/stable/
and since they are actually .tar.gz archives you can open them on linux quite easily

after you placed the headers somewhere on your pc, you can use a configure parameter to point to the headers. you don't want to install them in the regular folders I guess

usually the parameter is something like:

etc.

I thought that my goal is to create a 'make' file from the configure script.

configure (script) ==> make (file)

As I understand it, the make file is the set of instructions to compile the source code into executable and provides the location to install the executable.

I am not sure I understand what you have written. Are the packages a substitute for having the libraries? Which packages and why? Where should I place these packages? Should they be installed on the router using the ipkg command? How do I know which packages I need? Thank you for your patience.