Originally posted @ http://www.leifmadsen.com
I normally do all of this in virtual machines on a development server I use to test Asterisk, build projects, perform development -- lots of things related to Asterisk. So in doing this, I've gotten pretty good at getting a brand new, running Asterisk system up quickly. Hopefully this information helps you realize just how easy it is to install Asterisk from source and start playing yourself!