Hello,
I was wondering what type of linux everyone recommend for a basic asterisk system? Something with a nice GUI.
Or where i can begin my research.
Regards,
Frank
All linux systems will do. your “nice gui” all depends on taste 
OpenSuse has quite good hardware support
Fedora has stability as a server (though hardware support for desktops are bad)
Ubuntu is user friendly (recommended for desktops)
CentOS is a nice debian cored server
and there are many more.
Asterisk works on all, you should more pick your distro based on what other applications it might need to run / the distro you like most
though actually that is just the kernel 
for your linux Gui, you either go with one of these:
None - gogo hardcore command line
Gnome - the most used desktop
KDE - looks a bit like windows
Xfce - Baddest in graphical things, making it lightweight and fast even for pc’s with a bad graphical card
For asterisk installations you should NOT use a gui. You need to do a server install with no X support. For control of the system use either the console, SSH or a remote web interface.
Ian
Perhaps try one of the packaged versions with it all compiled already. Just boot from CD, onto a blank box, and there you go. Something you could play with to get the hang of things, and then look at compiling versions etc later ?
Try look at Elastix, or PBX in a flash. They both use FreePBX web based GUI for configuration also.
CentOS is a de-branded, unsupported, Red Hat system, not a Debian based one. (Debian and Red Hat are at rather different ends of open source politics.)
I believe that Digium normally use CentOS.
X is a resource hog, so could compromise performance, but is not entirely ruled out. If you don’t actually start it, it will only really waste disk space.
[quote=“david55”]
X is a resource hog, so could compromise performance, but is not entirely ruled out. If you don’t actually start it, it will only really waste disk space.[/quote]
While that is true if\when you do start X it WILL affect performance and very drastically reduce call quality on an even a moderatley loaded system.
[quote=“ianplain”]For asterisk installations you should NOT use a gui. You need to do a server install with no X support. For control of the system use either the console, SSH or a remote web interface.
Ian[/quote]
Strangely enough, i have had errors starting the dirsrv-admin process while i did a non graphical installation of my fedora. with a graphical interface i didnt have the error :S
just edit /etc/inittab so that it doesnt go to runlevel 5 but to runlevel 3 gives you a non graphical linux with the ability to go graphical when you need it ^^