Downloading the source
Most open source projects have their source code divided into two general categories: stable and latest. The FreeSWITCH project recently formed these two branches. Version 1.2.x is the stable branch and Version 1.3.x is the latest branch. Future releases will follow the even/odd numbering plan, where 1.4.x is stable and 1.5.x is the unstable or development branch. You can update to the latest branch at any time if you are using Git (see the Building from the latest code section in this chapter) One other point to keep in mind: binary distributions of FreeSWITCH might be available for your platform. While they are certainly convenient, in our experience it is easier to troubleshoot, update, and customize your FreeSWITCH installation when compiling from the source.
Be sure that your system has the Internet access because the build process will occasionally need to download additional files.
The source code can be obtained from the following FreeSWITCH download site:
Locate a file named freeswitch-1.2.x.tar.gz (where x is the latest build number), and download it into a local directory on your computer, then decompress it. A typical session in Linux might look like the following:
#>cd /usr/src #>wget http://files.freeswitch.org/freeswitch-1.2.1.tar.bz2 #>tar jxvf freeswitch-1.2.1.tar.bz2
This will create a new directory that contains the FreeSWITCH source code ready for you to compile on your system. (From now on, this will be referred to as the FreeSWITCH source directory.)
Windows users should create a new directory and download the source file. See the Compiling FreeSWITCH For Windows section later in this chapter.