Linux hosting

The term Linux unofficially covers all UNIX-based operating systems, but Linux is, in reality, a UNIX-based operating system. Linux is known for its rigid security structure and stability, although it is not very good yet when it comes to ease of use. Linux does have GUI now, but Windows still scores over Linux on the GUI end.

Linux was developed by Linus Benedict Torvalds in 1991 when he was a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. It was freely distributed over the Internet and, since then, has become a very widely used web hosting platform.

Contents

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* 1 Advantages of Linux hosting

o 1.1 The cost

o 1.2 Other advantages of Linux hosting

* 2 Disadvantages of Linux hosting

* 3 See also

Advantages of Linux hosting

The cost

* Linux is open source and free to use. There are no licensing costs involved (unless you want to use the paid version).

* Many components used on a Linux server are freely available as well. Apache webserver, which is similar to IIS on Windows, is free. Perl, MySQL, PHP, Python, and Ruby are some freely available programming languages you can use on a Linux server. Many Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs), such as Sendmail, Exims, and others are also free to use. This makes Linux hosting cheap and a widely popular choice of people with a limited budget for hosting.

* With open source structure, you have a very wide range of freely available scripts, snippets, applications, tools, etc., designed to work with Linux hosting, which makes it very easy for newbie webmasters/designers to build a website. While some open source Windows applications are also available, it's easier to find open source applications for Linux.

* HTML is platform-independent and works on both Windows and Linux. So, if your site has only HTML pages, Linux-based hosting may be the best choice for you as it is cheaper.

Other advantages of Linux hosting

* Linux-based servers are very stable. The security model used on Linux makes it an easily manageable, secure operating system.

* Linux-based servers can be used to build a very strong control interface due to their system architecture.

* Many popular control panels are available for Linux servers. WHM/cPanel is one that is very easy to use.

Disadvantages of Linux hosting

There are not many major disadvantages of Linux servers when they are secured properly at setup.

* Linux is exploitable if the server is not secured beforehand. Users should be aware of basic UNIX stuff — such as file permissions, ownerships, etc. — which is sometimes confusing for new users.

* Linux is not compatible with Windows applications and the coding conversions. This can be a major disadvantage with websites designed for Windows-based applications. However there are opensource projects to bring windows programing languages (such as ASP .net) to work on linux machines.