[Asterisk-Users] Best Linux for Asterisk

[Walt Reed]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:23:41PM +0000, Mark Woods said:
> 
> > > No, it won't be the absolute latest code, but the Debian
> > > community is pretty good about keeping packages updated.
> > ah! ah! ah!
> > really... oh oh, so why debian is eons later in releasing
> > new packages...
> > 
> > perhaps you're speaking of -unstable debian... that's
> > waaaay too unstable.
> 
> Ahhhh...but I *am* running unstable!  And it's been quite,
> well, stable!
> 
> :)

There is a huge misconception about stable vs unstable. FWIW, I have
found debian unstable to be more stable than most other distro's "stable"
releases. For a truely unstable version, "experimental" would be it.
Most of the "unstable" behavior has been in GUI based parts: Gnome in
particular. Since no sane person runs * on a machine that is also
running X, it's a non-issue. I've been running * on unstable for about 6
months now with zero downtime other than a few upgrades. Ditto for about
a dozen other servers doing high-volume mail, web serving, etc.

I find "stable" unsuitable for most things as all the packages and
libraries are too outdated. Yes, the backports help, but then you are
not really running stable anymore are you? There are too many
dependancies now on other software that needs to be up to date in order
to function properly and have the features needed.

Anyway, I don't think that it's possible to have a "best linux" to run
any kind of server on. They are all damn good. The core of any linux
distro handling non-gui based server applications is virtually
identical. Most of the differences are package versions, minor configuration
tweaks, package management, and other non-important (when it comes to
stability) factors. Do your own research and find one you are
comfortable with.

For a platform with long-term stability where packages are not
constantly changing, maybe something like WhiteBox Linux which is based
on the RedHat Enterprise would be appropriate.