I have a working FreePBX system from the 64bit distro. In includes one Sangoma B600 card and a couple of trunks.
I installed it with the 64bit distro, as well, I lean towards it in almost every setup I do. That said, its seems the general consensus is to use the 32bit of the distro for a number of reasons… so two questions for the experts…
First, if I have a running system on 64bit SHOULD I move to 32bit for the reasons sprinkled about the forum
Second, if I should can I just backup the config, reinstall and recover the configuration.
Some may argue this, but if you have 64bit capable hardware, OS, and drivers, there is no reason at all not to run in 64bit mode. I have run everything from Atom’s to multi-core, multi-processor systems under Asterisk just fine in 64bit mode. I have them in production for clients, from small to systems as large as almost 400 extensions, and they are working fine.
A few years back 64bit wasn’t nearly as common, but now days it’s the default standard for most hardware, and most OS’s also have full 64bit support.
We have over 70 deployed Asterisk boxes, and we install nothing but 64-Bit and have for the last 3 years - we have some stragglers out there, but I would say we have no more than 15 32-Bit systems anymore - the VAST majority are 64-Bit and anything new is always 64-Bit. Don’t switch…
On another note, if you go from 32-Bit to 64-Bit with a FreePBX Backup/Restore there is one thing you need to do for a happy transition - create a symbolic link in /usr/lib named asterisk that links to /usr/lib64/asterisk/ or you will finish the restore, fire it up, and Asterisk will only load about 18 applications (instead of the 180+ it normally loads) and bomb.
Hope this saves someone some time - it was tense the first time it happened to me.
This is really bad advice
"/usr/lib named asterisk that links to /usr/lib64/asterisk/"
The proper fix is to change it in /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf file so it points to the right location. Their are also other directories in their that should be updated when going from 32 to 64 bit.