[asterisk-users] which OS would be fine for asterisk

[Jared Smith]

On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 18:24 -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:
> I am bringing up several Fedora Core 7 boxen into production now. 
> 
> Besides a knee jerk reaction that "Fedora Sucks", can someone give a 
> real argument as to why I should or should not use it for production?  
> (besides the several MB of yum updates daily, which to me is a good thing).


First of all, let me state for the record that I'm a big fan of (and
contributor to) Fedora as a desktop Linux distribution.  Also, I'm
taking my Digium hat off for a minute... these opinions are mine, and
not to be confused with any sort of official position from Digium.

The biggest problem I see with Fedora (it's no longer called Fedora Core
as of version 7 -- it's just Fedora again) as a distro for a PBX is that
packages are only updated for at most 13 months.  So, for example, many
people using Fedora Core 3 for their PBX no longer have access to
security updates, etc. for their Asterisk box.  They basically assume
you're OK with upgrading your box every year, or that you don't care
about long-term updates (which may be fine for a desktop machine, but is
less friendly in terms of a server OS).

Personally, I use CentOS (when I don't care about support) or RHEL (when
support is important to me) as my preferred server distribution, simply
because they guarantee to have *years* worth (at least five years!) of
security updates, even if I choose not to upgrade to the latest
distribution.  (Debian has a similar policy, although I'm not sure the
exact length of time.)  As an added bonus, most of the server-class
hardware vendors (HP, Dell, IBM, etc.) seem to have better driver
support for RHEL than any other distribution.  They might have a slower
release cycle (averaging 18 to 24 months) than Fedora (which is
averaging 6-7 months between releases), but the long-term viability
makes the trade-off worth it in my mind.

In the end though, it really boils down to this:  The best Linux
distribution for your Asterisk box is the one you are the most
comfortable, especially when it comes to making sure the box is stable
and secure.

-Jared Smith