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Linux Web Hosting Basics

Linux web hosting is a web hosting service running on a Linux operating system. Linux is a open-source UNIX implementation, which became very popular lately.

When shopping for hosting you may have seen that there are two types of web hosting platforms available (not including Macintosh): Linux and Windows. There are some advantages of using Linux hosting. Linux web hosting is powerful, reliable, flexible and secure.

Both Linux hosting and Windows hosting provide good hosting solutions. In most cases they are both reliable and secure. However, Linux hosting is often known as being more robust and stable than Windows hosting. Of course, if you want to use a lot of Microsoft applications, then you may want Windows hosting because Linux is not compatible with all these applications. However, before you decide consider the benefits of the Linux Hosting platform.

Linux /Unix operating systems are stable and powerful. Hosting services using Linux operating systems are highly reliable. The uptime is usually around 99.9% when hosting on Linux server. Not only are Linux servers reliable, but also they are also easy to use. Lots of free open-source applications are written for Linux, which makes Linux hosting a very good hosting platform. You can run PHP, Perl, MySQL and many other popular open-source technologies and applications in Linux hosting environment.

Linux uses Apache web server, which is notorious for its stability and performance. There are many free applications available for Apache web server. More than 65% of the active websites run on Apache web server, while Windows IIS has around 25% share.

The most popular Linux/Unix Web Hosting operating systems are Red Hat Linux and Free BSD. Some of the other popular Linux distributions include Debian Linux, Fedora Linux, Mandrake Linux, SlackWare Linux, and SUSE Linux

Selecting a hosting plan that is hosted on a Linux server can save you money. Most Linux applications are free. Many Microsoft applications on the other hand are not. That means that web-hosting providers will need to pay for Microsoft applications. Since most Linux applications will be free, they will be able to offer you hosting at a lower cost if they provide Linux hosting.

Linux is open-source software. The source code can be modified and improved. This allows programmers to continually make Linux & Linux Hosting better. The software can be improved and problems can be fixed very quickly. Security is one of the high priorities of open-source development community. If any Linux security problems are discovered they are resolved in minutes or hours typically. It can take a lot longer for Windows security problems to be resolved.

When should you choose Linux hosting? If you are going to use PHP and MySQL applications you may want to use Linux hosting. This is also true if you are going to use Java Server pages or CGI scripts. These applications will be completely compatible with the Linux operating system. It’s better to use Linux hosting if you want to easily create search engine friendly URL (web addresses).

If your website will contain information that would have typically been found on a paper brochure before these capabilities were available through the use of website, using a Linux bases host may be best. This includes websites that contain information that could be found on paper data sheets and newsletters. These websites will most likely offer the potential for interaction with those who are viewing the website. Such sites may also offer the ability to order items online. There can also be other Ecommerce features on these websites.

Linux based websites have traditionally been more widely used than Windows. The hosting services using Linux based servers are powerful, reliable, flexible and secure. Depending upon what features and applications you need for your website, Linux may be the hosting platform that you need.