Asterisk Versions?

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Asterisk Users 3 Comments

Hi all,

I’m a fairly long time user of Asterisk, but I’m new to this list. I
used to use the old forums some few years ago.

I wanted to ask why there are different Asterisk versions, as shown by the announcements in the past week or 2:

Asterisk 13.33.0
Asterisk 16.10.0
Asterisk 17.4.0

I’m currently using 16.8.0 and wondering if I should upgrade to
16.10.0, or perhaps give 17.4.0 a try.

Are there any differences I should be aware of, like config file syntax or similar things?

Thanks,

—
Dave

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3 thoughts on - Asterisk Versions?

  • Hey Dave,

    In the case of 13 and 16, these are LTS versions which means that they get long term service. 17 is a standard release. The benefit of an LTS is that you can expect it to get bug fixes and improvements for an extended period of time without anything major being changed. If you find an LTS version that has everything you need, it’s probably the safest version to choose. Any noteworthy changes between releases in a version (16.8 to 16.9, for example) will be documented in the CHANGES and UPGRADE.txt files. If you’re worried about configuration changes or syntax, this is the place to look.

    Of course, as a developer I love to see people on the most up to date version, but it’s all user preference 🙂

    I would recommend checking out the wiki for more details on the version you are looking at.

  • Thanks for that info, Ben. I do like to test out the latest and most up-to-date versions of things when I can, so I’ll check those files and see how it goes.

    On 2020-05-11 17:20, Ben Ford put forth the proposition:

    —
    Dave

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  • I’ll also add that different versions have different lifetimes. A great resource is the Asterisk Versions wiki page[1] which details when versions go security fix only and ultimately end of life. Asterisk 13 will go security fix only this year and has actually had a longer life than usual, with it first being released in October of 2014.

    [1] https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/Asterisk+Versions