Linux Community Magazine

Before we go into the details of Linux web hosting, a bit of knowledge about Linux and web hosting will always come in handy.

Web hosting is a service which allows users across the world to put up their web sites on the Internet. The websites are hosted through particular servers that are themselves connected to the Internet on a permanent basis. On a crude basis, servers are computers themselves, with a very large amount of space present. This space is utilized, by renting out the space to interested users who need to form their own website.

Although synonymously used, UNIX and Linux are two discrete operating systems, the latter being an open sourced version of the former. Open source means that not only is the software free to use and distribute, it can be modified as per user requirements. That is why there are so numerous versions of Linus floating around. Although in the desktop world, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X are heavily conventional, Linux is the excellent operating system from the point of view of web hosting.

In the beginning, Linux hosting was a question of development, and commercial use of the structure was still out of bounds. Characteristic of UNIX, Linux web hosting came with its complexities. However, due to several reasons that are discussed afterwards, Linux web hosting started to become famous, and reasonably enough, it was incorporated into the business environment. In recent times, development of numerous tools and understanding through experience has made this reasonably complex platform comparatively easier to operate, thus improving its approval in the process.

Characteristic of the UNIX platform, Linux is rated really high with respect to strength and reliability. If teamed up with appropriate hardware and other related stuff, Linux can function at an ideal rate for extensive stretches of time without sustentation task or other complex problems. However, no matter how trustworthy or stable a platform is, the output of a system depends on its infrastructure and the host server. Any technical difficulties in these areas (Apache, PHP) will produce potential dents in the system.

Another great benefit of Linux web hosting is its cost proficiency. Linux hosting is considerably cheaper than compared to other Microsoft Windows solution (or Apple Mac OS X). There are many reasons for this cost effectiveness. However, the first reason comes from the fact that Linux is an open source platform. This makes allotment of the application easy.

Supportability and principal functionality are few of the other reasons of acceptance of Linux in the world of web hosting. The varied limit of languages it supports is single to Linux. Few of the languages its supports are C, C++, PHP, Python, Perl. These help the developer crate bright user interactive websites, far off from the usual HTML driven websites of the past.

Reasons abound concerning why to choose Linux as the web hosting platform. The level of safety and reliability is unmatched. Being the most commonly used platform in the world of web hosting, it derives famous help from the web designer community. The level of execution is indeed extremely high.