Tom Rymes wrote: > On Feb 12, 2007, at 7:13 PM, Stephen Bosch wrote: > >> Lee Jenkins wrote: >>> Stefano Corsi wrote: > >>> The nice things about GUI's in my opinion is that routine chores such as >>> setting up extensions, dialing extensions, hunt groups, etc. are less >>> likely to contain scripting bugs or typos. The downside from what I >>> gather with many GUI's is that the friendly abstraction that insulates >>> you from the nuts and bolts of scripting and configuration also makes it >>> difficult to customize the dialplan in some cases. >> >> It also makes troubleshooting problems a handful-and-a-half. And woe is >> you if you need kernel customizations to make your hardware work. > > Not to start a flame-war, but I completely disagree. Troubleshooting a > GUI is much easier, given that you don't have to scout for typos, > transposed numbers, etc throughout the dialplan. With the GUI, you have > to double check the information that you input into the GUI, but that's > it. As for hardware, it should be no more difficult to get Trixbox to > play nicely with hardware than any other Asterisk install. You may have > to patch and/or recompile zaptel, asterisk, etc, but that's no different > than what you would have to do with a non-Trixbox install. (and you > really shouldn't have to in almost all cases)
I come from the practice of compiling everything from sources because binary distributions -- be they of Asterisk or any other Linux or Linux application -- are unreliable. Nobody knows what hardware you're running but you; compiling from sources gives you a better chance of ending up with a result that works. I used to use binary distributions; that's when I had the most trouble getting stuff working. I did one source installation and never looked back. Not for everybody, sure -- but I find I waste less time if I just build the damn thing from scratch. There are distros that let you do this more easily (Gentoo comes to mind). And troubleshooting a GUI is *not* easier if there is something wrong with the GUI. Now you're not troubleshooting anymore -- you're debugging. How painful that is for me is a question of depth of documentation. Trixbox' documentation is not great. I'm not just shooting my mouth off. I speak from experience here. >> I would say this -- if all you're ever going to use is VOIP trunks, by >> all means use Trixbox. It's great for that. But if you're using any kind >> of PSTN hardware (TDM cards, Sangoma) just stick with straight Asterisk. > > Are you kidding? Sangoma actually has a version of Trixbox on their site > that comes bundled with their drivers already installed (see > http://wiki.sangoma.com/Trixbox-1xx ). All you have to do is configure > the card(s) in the same way as you would with any Asterisk install. Having to hunt around for packages and drivers in multiple locations cancels the benefit of a "1 hour and you're up" install of anything. (I respectfully challenge that assertion, anyway -- it was never in danger of being anywhere near that for me, because things didn't work "out of the box".) >> Here's another reason to seriously consider generic: the userbase is >> larger, AND they're more likely to know what they're talking about when >> a problem does arise. Trixbox attracts a lot of amateurs who are >> themselves new to IP telephony; that's why they choose it. > > Valid point, but FreePBX (the program Trixbox uses for GUI Asteirsk > config) also has a large userbase, and a number of Trixbox problems are > not Trixbox specific, and can be addressed by the Asterisk community as > a whole. Have a look at the list archives and see how Trixbox questions are handled by the list membership. It doesn't build confidence. >>> Of course, you should take this with a grain of salt since I tried [EMAIL >>> PROTECTED] >>> (now TrixBox) for a total of 2 weeks before gutting it. >> >> There is a good reason people don't stick with it for long. > > Many people do not stick with Trixbox for long, and many others do. The > crux of the issue is this: FreePBX/Trixbox, and most other GUIs will > make it easier to get your system up and running, and they make it > easier to maintain it, make changes, etc. (I am defining "easier" as > "requiring less technical familiarity with the underpinnings of exactly > what is going on" as well as "less intimidating and error prone since no > manual editing of configuration files is required.") Fair enough -- and this would be fine for me if things "just worked". They often don't. Then I'm back to > On the other hand, > emacs/vi/pico/whatevereditoryouprefer and the text config files without > a GUI are more difficult, but offer greater flexibility with all of the disadvantages and none of the advantages. Anyway, that was my input; your mileage may vary. -Stephen- _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users