Recently I have decided to try out well regarded Asterisk Now distribution. I’ve used 1.0.1 version. I was thinking that it will be well integrated, user friendly Linux distribution for getting your PBX up.

Initially I was happy with what I have found. It’s Asterisk part was just working. Then I have actually started to customize it, so it would fit in to my systems. This is where I started to notice that it ain’t what I expected.

First  what I have found annoying what that Asterisk web interface was not working too good with Firefox 3 and Konqueror. It was alright with Firefox 2. Oh and it was blood slow.

Then the whole backend, I have learned that it’s using rPath as a base system. I could not find any documentation on rPath websites which would be useful for Sys Admins. How do I use it? After a while I have found a link on Asterisk web interface which took me to some RAA interface…. which I couldn’t logon to with my Admin credentials … had do go down the shell and dig out defaults from some file in /etc/raa.

Now was time to get dhcp and tftp to work. Dhcp was installed in form of udhcpd , which I have configured and …. it wasn’t working. First, no integration between firewall management and service management. Second, even when configured properly, it was refusing to give out IPs. TFTP , I have used search facility in the RAA interface, but clicking on a ‘+’ button did nothing to install it. How do I install software in rPath ?

At that point I was no longer happy about Astreisk Now and I’ve decided to install some real world Linux. I can live with Asterisk not having pretty interface by default, but I can’t live without a working system underneath  it.