Linux

[Plotloss]

Right then, I've thrown away the razor and been out to buy some socks and sandals and I am ready to have a play with Linux ;)

I'm looking to set up an Asterisk VoIP PBX

Any tips for which distribution of Linux to use?

[naiive]Is there a GUI for it natively or do you have to go and install something like X-Windows after installing the core?[/naiive]

All this and more piss taking opportunity later no doubt...

Ta.

[robbieduncan]

Depends on which distro you choose. Gentoo is very good if you know what you are doing but involves a lot of time at the command line (a beta GUI for installation is in the works). If you get a more consumer oriented distro the whole installation is in a GUI with about as many steps needed as Windows XP.

[fredf]

as this is mainly going to be a server, you should probably stay away from the main distributions, redhat, suse, etc. as they are rather bloated and go for something like Debian or Gentoo (as already mentioned)

Neither (i think... long time since i tried Gentoo) provide you with a GUI by default, but it's very easy to add and well documented.

Asterisk is included in the debian distribution so should install very easily.

[Wacky Racer]

www.debian.org/

[zaktoo]

Ubuntu (based on Debian) is IMHO a great way to go. Graphical installer & the whole toot. Once up & running, just "apt-get install asterisk" (or use whatever gui package manager is installed) and you're off. I'm just playing with Asterisk myself - seems like the business, although telephony is quite alien to me...

Ciao

Zak

[aldi]

Just another tuppence - I'd read up about Asterisk first, maybe they reccomend a specific distro? Or, if you can find instructions/docs that refer to a specific one, use that one. It will make things easier.

[silverfox]

I'd try Fedora 4 but the Asterix Guru

www.asteriskguru.com/tutorials/

documents an installation using Debian.

Good luck.

[off_again]

Try the latest PC Plus (I think!) which includes 4-5 mini-Linux distributions. Some are OK some are a bit crappy, but saves on the download and includes some documentation and links.... so worth a look.

[Mr E]

I'm very happy with Suse or Slackware (Suse is easier)

[Plotloss]

Thanks fellas.

But I've just had a look at Debian.

Its 8.4GB

Thats 4 times the size of Windows Vista.

Do I have to download and install it complete?

[GregE240]

Bet its easier to bloody install than Vista is

[zumbruk]

Plotloss said:

Thanks fellas. But I've just had a look at Debian. Its 8.4GB Thats 4 times the size of Windows Vista. Do I have to download and install it complete?

Nope. That's absolutely everything, including zillions of applications. There should be a minimal end-user install, somewhere (sorry, I haven't installed Debian for yonks.)

[fredf]

Plotloss said:

Thanks fellas. But I've just had a look at Debian. Its 8.4GB Thats 4 times the size of Windows Vista. Do I have to download and install it complete?

No. You can download a minimum network install
this provides the basics needed to install debian, all packages will be downloaded when required.
or you can just download the first CD, this will install the base system and you can, again, download all other packages when required.

[Pigeon]

The Debian network installation CD image is about 180MB so not too bad. There's also a really minimal business-card-CD network installer image (40MB) but that might not cover you if something unusual happens. If the machine is a dedicated server then the complete installation need only take a few hundred MB of hard disk space.

The latest Debian stable release has a froody new installer which is supposed to be really easy to use, though I haven't tried it yet.

You do need X-Windows if you want a GUI but that simply means telling the installer you want it, it's nothing to sweat about. You then need a window manager to sit on top of it; there's a wide choice, from the complete Windows-like desktop environment (eg. KDE) to the minimalist no-frills type (eg. blackbox).

If you don't go for Debian itself at least go for one that uses the Debian package management system (.deb package files) which is way better than rpm.

[Bodo]

linux.com article 'Five mistakes GNU/Linux neophytes make' said:

Distro choice Everyone has an opinion on which GNU/Linux distribution you should start with, and most of them are inappropriate. GNU/Linux aficionados are often poor sources of distribution advice because they're too involved with advocating their favorite distro to consider new users' needs. GNU/Linux experts are too far removed from the "new to Linux" experience and too entrenched in hard-to-handle distributions like Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo, among others. And why should you get off easy with a user-friendly distro when they had to do it all from the command line when they first used GNU/Linux 10 years ago? Having reviewed several versions of dozens of desktop distributions over the years, I know two things: that desktop GNU/Linux is a matter of taste, and that no one distro has it all over the others. If you're new to GNU/Linux, you're going to want to consider the following distributions, in no specific order: * SUSE Professional and, in the future, openSUSE * Linspire * Xandros * Fedora Core * Mandriva (formerly Mandrakelinux) These distributions have all proven themselves over a period of years. The companies produce consistently high-quality distributions that generally work well with a wide variety of computer hardware. All of them except openSUSE and Fedora Core are commercial distros, so you'll have to pay for them, although they have either free download editions (reduced or limited versions of the distro) or live CDs (the whole distribution will run on a CD) available for you to try before you buy. There are other desktop GNU/Linux distributions that are free of charge, but from them you don't get the same level of all-around desktop computing excellence that you do from the ones listed above.

www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/24/1836223

ok, ok. Everybody advises Plotloss to a lean dedicated solution that doesn't occupy more hardware than necessary and is never being booted above init 3.
Rightly so for professional use; but I don't know how much experience he has. Depending on that, it might be easier to start with an easy to use/install desktop distribution to experiment with.

[Zod]

GregE240 said:

Bet its easier to bloody install than Vista is

Have you actaully installed Vista? The current beta takes ages, but it couldn't be easier. You don't actually do anything apart from decide whether to insall alongside or on top of the current windows insallation.

[fredf]

Bodo said:

www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/24/1836223 ok, ok. Everybody advises Plotloss to a lean dedicated solution that doesn't occupy more hardware than necessary and is never being booted above init 3. Rightly so for professional use; but I don't know how much experience he has. Depending on that, it might be easier to start with an easy to use/install desktop distribution to experiment with.

I'm sure I'm going to regret answering this point.

A problem with may Linux reviews is that they only seem to concentrate on the installation and initial impressions of the system, not the long term usage of the system, how easy it is to upgrade, how easy it is to add/remove packages, how the system degrades over time.

Although server like distributions such as debian may be harder to install and take longer to initially setup, they should be less work in the long term.



Have you considered BSD

[Mr E]

Zod said:

GregE240 said: Bet its easier to bloody install than Vista is Have you actaully installed Vista? The current beta takes ages, but it couldn't be easier. You don't actually do anything apart from decide whether to insall alongside or on top of the current windows insallation.

I recently slapped Suse 9.2 on a new machine.

I was required to give the system a root password, a name for the system, and tell it that I used a DHCP setup for my network.

That was it.

[Plotloss]

Right then, I've downloaded Debian's Network Installation.

Before I start.

Assuming the machine has a load of standard cards I take it the installer will find all these and negotiate the network and get the internet etc?

I wont end up in driver hell in other words?

It appears the Asterisk needs compiling using the 'make' command. Will any other of the Linux modules require compilation?

As you can see I am a COMPLETE novice at Linux, my last experience of Unix even was in Uni, it was Vi and I just remember being annoyed at the clunkyness of it all...

[theexcession]

Plotloss said:

Right then, I've downloaded Debian's Network Installation. Before I start. Assuming the machine has a load of standard cards I take it the installer will find all these and negotiate the network and get the internet etc? I wont end up in driver hell in other words? It appears the Asterisk needs compiling using the 'make' command. Will any other of the Linux modules require compilation? As you can see I am a COMPLETE novice at Linux, my last experience of Unix even was in Uni, it was Vi and I just remember being annoyed at the clunkyness of it all...

You should find that it detects the hardware properly, most Linux distro's have come on a long way since the early days.

As for using 'make' - don't get fussed about this, just about everything you will ever install on Linux will require this. Generally you just download the tar.gzip, uncompress it into a folder, then run 'configure', 'make' and maybe 'make install' and there it is working.

Sometimes you will find that you don't have all the libaries to support a pice of software so you just go through the same download & instally process again and again until you have everything and it works.

Again, things are a lot easier than they used to be. You'll soon get the hang of it!

Enjoy, by next week you'll probably be compiling your own Kernel

best
Ex

>> Edited by theexcession on Thursday 1st September 10:52