Linux Hosting Tutorials

Benefits of Linux Hosting- There are many benefits to Linux hosting and Best Linux Web Hosting has listed some of the popular benefits of Linux hosting in this article. Most of the best web hosting providers offer Linux hosting because of the benefits.

The fact that it is open source and the fact that it is so widely used are among the benefits of Linux hosting. But there’s more. Read on to find out more Linux hosting benefits.

Reliability of Linux Hosting

According to Netcraft, Linux was the OS of 69% of the top 42 performing hosting providers as far as reliability in June 2010. At the same time, 455 or 91% of the top 500 supercomputer sites relied on a Linux distribution for their operating system.

Cost of Linux Hosting

Because the Linux kernel and the GNU (GNU’s Not UNIX) components offered with it are often all open source software, the webhost is often not paying the high licensing fees that proprietary operating systems demand. In a survey of webhosting service, it was found that Windows webhosting is, in fact, generally more expensive than Linux hosting. This is either reflected in a higher cost for Windows hosting with the same bandwidth, server space, and RAM or in identical costs for Windows and Linux hosting while the Windows bandwidth and server space are reduced. Often web hosts publish the figures for Windows and Linux hosting options on separate pages to make comparison a bit more difficult.

Updates

Because Linux is an open source platform, it does not have a small, paid team of developers, but a worldwide body of users who are constantly working to increase functionality and fix bugs. While release does have to wait for necessary cycle elements, like testing, it doesn’t have to wait for market release cycles on the one hand, or be rushed out the door because of them on the other: each iteration can be released when it’s ready.

Many Choices

Windows is Windows, but Linux is Red Hat and Debian and Fedora and SuSE and Cobalt and Gentoo and Mandriva and CentOS and Ubuntu and more. Each different Linux distribution that has characteristics that can make it a good choice for particular purposes. For example, CentOS is known for reliability and stability, while Ubuntu is touted for being user-friendly and having strong community-based support and a regular release cycle. Fedora, on the other hand, is recommended for advanced users, and is considered to be a cutting-edge version. Some had earlier first releases, like SUSE Linux (1994) and Red Hat Linux (1995), and others started up more recently, like Asianux (2004) and Oracle Enterprise Linux (2006).

Server Choices

Linux distributions can run on Apache, Google, nginx (pronounced "Engine X"), and

lighttpd (pronounced "Lighty") servers. In fact, the only one of the top 5 servers used in webhosting, according to Netcraft, that it can’t be used on is Microsoft servers, which of course uses proprietary Windows software.

The LAMP Platform

The Linux system is characteristically used in a certain setting: on an Apache server, with mySQL databases and a choice of the PHP, Perl, or Python web scripting language. This collection of open source software was not originally designed as a set, but it became a valued combination to web developers for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it can be set up on a desktop for building applications, which can then be ported to the Internet.

Security

The debate about whether Linux or Windows servers are more vulnerable has been ongoing. When looking into this issue, it’s important to make sure to compare servers, as opposed to desktops, which some of the reported data refers to, without making this clear.

A team from the UK online IT publication, the Register, effectively showed in 2004 that even by Microsoft’s own standards, their last 40 patches/vulnerabilities were more critical than the last 40 of Red Hat. A review of the US CERT database (Computer Emergency Readiness Team) showed a much higher ratio of severe alerts for Windows than for Red Hat or Linux. The study debunks some longstanding security myths about Windows and Linux, and concludes that while Linux is more secure inherently and points to the administrative difference of Linux being administered remotely, while Windows Server 2003 is often administered at the server itself at the graphical interface, which exposes it to more risk. This is a report from 2004: nevertheless, Windows Server 2003 is still in use in many places.

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