My guess is which distro of Linux I choose will eventually matter.
I expect the same is true which open-source Asterisk GUI tools I choose will also matter.
I like Novell SUSE because they understand that if you install the OS and it can’t even turn on the screen without configuration then some developer’s priorities are inverted.
But then, I don’t even hate Microsoft for making computers usable for the majority of mankind.
Still I’d like to know if anyone has good advice about whether rLinux or any other non-commercial distro has got the backbone to run quad proc servers or some other standard grade server feature like a lights out card.
Also, if I’plan to have to network a bunch of Asterisk servers, are there any of the Asterisk GUI’s and managers and so forth that are best bets? Or is the rule that if you want control you have to build it yourself the most reliable?
So should I really expect to have to pay for SUSE Server and Asterisk Business Version to really have a substantial distributed system?
Thanks for any help you can provide that might spare me YALC (yet another learning curve)
I personally use CentOS (www.centos.org). It’s RHLE except that you arent paying for it. As far as a GUI it really depends on what you are trying to do. I for one hate GUI’s. People tend to learn the GUI real well and thats it. They never really do learn how asterisk works. When there is an issue, a lot of times it can be the GUI and since they never actuallly messed with asterisk (as in editing the actual files) they wont know how to fis the problem. If you need a GUI for the end user (i.e. clients) it depends on what you need. There are a lot of GUI’s out there that help manage asterisk servers. If there is one out there that serve’s your needs than grab it. However if I needed a GUI I would design it myself since I dont think there is a GUI out that there thay will have everything that I need. Since I am building it for my needs the GUI will have every feture that I want.
Well I get the GUI part because I found the books on the documentation project (should be a sticky note in all the forums with a link to that).
But your reference to RHLE I’m not so sure about. ‘Red Hat Linux Engineer’ seems to imply its ‘certified?’ or maybe good?
I’m expecting that if I move the app or integrate with another server I can spin up a quad processor machine or stick in an Avocent card for lights out or plug in a ipscsi card or any number of other things that might be wise from a hardware perspective.
Is there any way to run down what configurations a distro will support without having to spend a year plugging things in and out by trial and error?
Honestly there is so many distro out there that it is difficult to answer your question. But i can tell you that for the server at work i use fedora core 5(Don’t use 6 i tried it and it sucks) .
Why? because its the most used distro so you can have a lot of support. And its a easy one. But at home i use Gentoo. This really a good distro if you want to learn linux because nothing is done for you and i do like portage.
You also have to read a bit on each distro because they have different philosophy.
So if you don’t want YALC! Use one of the well know distro because you will find lot of support on net :
Fedora core
Cent Os
Debian
…
My advice would be Fedora , it took me only 30 min to get my asterisk server up with this distro.
