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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Wow,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I just want you to know I am and have been a
Networks Engineer for many years. I started back when Novell was king for
networks. Window and many others have come by and I have setup shop with
them. I still manager and maintain several of my Clients Windows
networks. Almost 3 years ago our boss/owner decided to give asterisk
a try. We got a Consultant and they set the system up for us. I at
the time did not know Linux distro's and was under the impression they were all
the same. We I quickly learn there not. (Yes Linux kernel is the
main part.) But the distro's are very different. We were setup on
Mandrake. I learn as much as I could about asterisk and for the 1st 6
months never did anything with the OS. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well soon I needed to do some changes and add
something's like reporting and other options that required me to start learning
the OS and what It could do. I looked at about 10 major distro's, Red Hat
9 was current back then, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo, & Slackware. There
all good I spent about 3 months going through them to fine the one that would
fit me best. I decided due to all the books out to learn and setup Red Hat
9. Which by the way asterisk works great on. I setup all our 3
different servers on RH 9. Very soon RH changed there Linux distro's to
the Enterprise editions and create in there Open Source Fedora. I tried Fedora
Core1 and Core 2 until about 1 year ago. And at that time I found
CentOS. It's Red Hat Enterprise without there labels. And Now I am
using for all my setups CentOS. For Production systems I am using there CentOS
3.4/3.5. Works great and is easy to setup. For my testing and other
servers that run on Linux I use CentOS 4.1.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have started to move some of my customers off
Windows. It's a great stable OS which is mission critical product.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hope this helps if you need more info please feel
free to email me off list.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ariel</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=voip@teleweb.be href="mailto:voip@teleweb.be">TWV</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
href="mailto:asterisk-users@lists.digium.com">asterisk-users@lists.digium.com</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, July 03, 2005 2:45 AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Asterisk-Users] Linux
Distribution for Asterisk server use</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=Section1>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN lang=NL-BE
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Hello,<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN lang=NL-BE
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">My question is about which Linux
distribution to choose for Asterisk. (/me holds breath) OK, hopefully
you’re still reading, because whatever you were thinking now, you’re thinking
wrong! ;)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">First of all, I want to make clear
that I have read EVERY message and reply that I could possibly find about this
topic, so that includes the dozens of messages here on the Asterisk
mailinglists, on the Digum forum, and even Google search
results!<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Still, my question was not
answered! Mainly because the same answer always came back: “Use the one
you are most comfortable with”. Well, I already knew that (linux is
linux), but it doesn’t apply to my situation <st1:PersonName w:st="on"
ProductID="at all">at all</st1:PersonName>!<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Let’s make things clear and
concrete now:<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">In my professional life, I work as
a windows system & network administrator and as a developer on the NET
platform, and have a long and extensive experience with telecom and
VoIP. Working for a telecom company, I now have accepted the challenge
to extend our offering with Asterisk. During the past 6 months, I have
learned as much as I possibly could about the Asterisk PBX, successfully set
up a complete test environment, developed IVR systems, and now we feel the
time is right to put these services into production. BUT, before we can
go live, one important problem remains: as I said, I am a Windows guy, I have
a VERY profound knowledge of Windows and manage almost 20 Windows 2003 Servers
that run mission-critical applications on a 365/24/7 basis, and support a
large number of Windows applications and Web services (some of the
applications I have developed are used by more than 25000 users every day!)
Why am I telling this? Well, because I want to make it clear that
I am perfectly happy with my platform/OS (windows), and have no intent
whatsoever to ever change servers or application platforms to linux (let alone
my workstation). What’s more, I have NEVER come in to contact with
linux/unix before, so I have never worked with ANY
distribution.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Having explained all this, it
should sound logical that I chose the AsteriskWin32 version for learning
Asterisk. Of course, I realize that we can’t put any production system
on AsteriskWin32… So before we can go live with Asterisk servers and
services, this last issue remains to be resolved: what Linux distribution
should I choose (and learn)?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">As I explained, I see Linux merely
as a “necessary evil” (because of my lack of knowledge) for running Asterisk.
So I’m asking about the best linux distribution only to put up asterisk
servers. I’m NOT asking for the easiest one or so (I always enjoy
challenges and learning new things), I’m asking for the best choice to build a
carrier grade telecom system, having to support thousands of users each and
every day. So it must be reliable and easy to maintain and
upgrade. We are going to use Asterisk in our own datacenters (supporting
nation-wide services), as well as in servers that we sell to corporations and
callcenters for use as an advanced PBX/CTI
system).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">So it should be clear that I’m not
talking about a hobby or home deployment here. Our central asterisk
systems for example will have to manage DS3 or (lots of) E1
trunks…<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">If you need more information, I am
happy to supply it. I appreciate your time and am hoping for some good
suggestions and arguments which will lead me to the correct choice for now and
for the years to come.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Thanks!<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
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