[Asterisk-Users] pre-installation jitters

[Samudra E. Haque]

hi, we have just received our first shipment of digium cards, FXO + FXS combinations, and collected all the hardware for our custom clone server which will house our test-bed for asterisk.

I'm based in Dhaka, Bangladesh so you will understand we may not always be able to get all the hardware we need, when we need them and in the manner that other people are used to.. from a catalog or from a reputable vendor... but at least I can say that my Slackware host machines have been in *continous* production service as the first ISP from 1996 onwards... and they have been steadily upgraded over time.

I would like to build my newest server based upon Fedora Core 3, and load up asterisk. I was all set to do so.. but then I read in Asterisk Users Digest, Vol 4, Issue 404:

Gentoo to compile all the apps. Fedora Core 2 has worked fine for me
running Asterisk for a long time now and I recommend that over Fedora
Core 3 due to the introduction of udev which requires additional tweaks
and too cutting edge versions of gcc for my taste.

Is there any cheat sheet available somewhere that could guide me to the pitfalls/path to Fedora installation with Asterisk ? If I used Fedora 3, for the asterisk host OS, what "tweaks" and changes would I have to consider doing ? I'm a very proficient Linux developer.. but that statement above (Attributed to Patrick) puzzles me, is it due to an upgrade of a system, or a fresh installation ? 

Another issue I would like to request some advice on is in two parts:

a) Analog ports, FXS or FXO variety, most probably FXO variety. Can I do 20 FXO ports on an asterisk server ? if not, any examples of a "large" number of FXO ports ? 

b) Digital ports, I assume 4xE1 ports are available from Varion, or from Digium (not supported by them though) but what about "cheap" channel banks, that are economical and no frills, good for loop start/ground start with no polarity reversal, FXS variety. Any suppliers of these devices, please contact me off list. (haque at at nmc dot dot pradeshta dot dot net). 

-samudra


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