Choosing An Operating System
Ok great, now you’ve figured what type of hosting better suits your needs whether it is a dedicated server, virtual private server or shared hosting. Now you need to figure out which operating system you will be using.
Before you read further, you must understand that the operating system is distinctive from the web server software itself. This means that you could run Apache’s HTTP server on both Windows and Unix / Linux OS.
Also keep in mind that if you are going for a shared hosting service, you will not have to care about the operating system management. As for dedicated and virtual servers, your favorite operating system will be installed by your hosting service provider.
Microsoft Windows Operating System
Microsoft’s operating system has to be the best known. But wait. Even though Microsoft Windows is the best known operating system, it may not be the most popular plateform for web servers. Microsoft Windows Server comes with its own web server called IIS (Internet Information Server). While it is packaged with Windows, it does not have to be installed by default so it enables you to run the web server of your choice, such as Apache’s HTTP server.
The good
- Easier to manage and secure
- ASP (Active Server Pages) support with IIS
The bad
- More expensive as you have to pay for a licence
- Most softwares are commercials
Unix / Linux Operating System
The Linux OS has been the standard for web hosting for a long time although it started losing some market shares when Microsoft Windows Server 2000 came out. Most Linux distributions are packaged with Apache’s HTTP server. It is not possible to run IIS on Linux.
There are different flavors of Linux, some are commercial and some are free :
Commercial Linux Distributions
Free Linux Distributions
You can get an extended linux distributions list here.
As Linux administration is for intermediate and advanced administrators, I suggest you look out for available packages. Packages are softwares that are already compiled for your favorite Linux distributions. Installing and maintaining a package is a lot more easier than getting the source code, compiling it and installating it manually. So what I do is I look for the packages I need such as PHP, MySQL, Postfix, Courier, Perl, PostgreSQL, etc. I try to see what version of these packages are available for a particular distribution. For example, PHP 5 is not available for SuSE Linux. That sucks. I may try to find another distribution then.
My favorite one has to be CentOS which is based on RedHat Enterprise Linux, making it easier to find documentation and packages.
The good
- Benefits from a huge online community of users providing lots of documentation, tools and free softwares.
- Free Linux distributions are available
- Needs less computer resources to run (can you notice this website your are actually reading is running on a 500Mhz CPU only?)
The bad
- Needs more advanced skills to run an unmanaged Linux server (unless you have a shared hosting account of course).
- Lack of support for ASP pages.
Hosting Your First Website - Part 3
Top Commentators