ANT - Ant is Not a Telephone
****************************
Copyright 2002 Roland Stigge


WHAT IT IS
==========

ANT is a small telephone application written for GNU/Linux, I4L (ISDN4Linux,
integrated in the kernel), GTK+ (GIMP Toolkit) and OSS (Open Sound System).


ABOUT ANT
=========

It directly interfaces OSS and ISDN devices, so there is no need to install
extra software or hardware like PBX (Private Branch Exchange) or telephony
cards, if you've got direct access to an audio capable ISDN Card and full
duplex (or multiple) soundcard.

For the soundcard interface you can use headphones (or speakers) and a
microphone, or a headset instead of all this.

Currently, there is no direct mixer integration planned for ANT for several
reasons. For GNU/Linux, there are quite a lot of good mixer programs available
such as aumix, kmix, smix or tkmixer. The other reason is to make the program
more general. Not all sound devices have mixer support integrated and many
don't provide an obvious interface.

NOTE: Currently, this is a work in progress (beta version) and may contain
      bugs.


WHAT YOU WILL NEED
==================
to run:

* a computer
* an ISDN card with audio support for Linux (ISDN4Linux driver)
  (teles or HiSax drivers are known to work)
* GNU/Linux (as far as nobody has tried it on another platform yet)
* OSS support
* a full duplex sound card or two sound devices
  (one for input, another for output)
* a microphone (or your sound source of choice)
* speakers, or better: headphones
* instead of the last two points, you could also use a headset
* GTK+

to compile:

* GNU make
* GCC
* GTK+ development files
* OSS development files (actually, it's mostly just one header file)


WHAT YOU MIGHT NEED
===================
* possibly a mixer application of your choice (e.g. aumix or smix) to set up
  your audio devices (check your recording and playback levels to make sure
  to hear your calling/called party and to be heard by them


FEATURES
========
* of course, dialing out and receiving calls
* big / little endian support for processor architecture and sound card
* different 8 and 16 bit audio formats supported
* different sampling speeds supported (if sound device(s) don't support
  native ISDN sampling speed)
* setting outgoing (identifying) MSN (Multiple Subscriber Number) and
  MSNs to listen on


HOW TO COMPILE
==============

just run:

   make


HOW TO START
============

run:

   ./ant


RELEASE CONDITIONS
==================

ANT is released under the GPL (GNU General Public License). Please read
the file named COPYING.


CONTACT
=======

Please write to stigge@epost.de for bug reports, comments and suggestions.
All of that will be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
