Introduction
Linux web hosting basically means that that a company is allowed to make its website by using the Linux operating system. It is an open source variation of the UNIX operating system. This platform gives users a flexibility of using open source programs like PHP, MySQL, Python, and XML. Linux web hosting and UNIX operating system are the most commonly used platforms today. The Linux companies are similar to the UNIX web hosts.
History
Linux web hosting was initially a project of a Finnish student Linus Torvald, he created a new operating system kernel. The Linux kernel since then has grown. At the time of its initial release in the year 1991 when it was only a small number of C files to over 370 megabytes of source under the GNU. The initial version of Linux that was released had a binary of GNU’s Bash Shell. The Linux and GNU workers integrated Linux and GNU components into Linux so that fully functional hosting software could be created.
Features
Linux web hosting has been commonly used in the hosting industry for providing web server, and database and DNS services and email hosting. It is stable, dependable and cost efficient. While choosing Linux or any web hosting server the question is that which applications, programming languages and databases you will be using on your website. There are lots of open source applications and utilities that you can opt for at cheap rates. The most popular languages that Linux has are PHP, Perl, and Python. It also supports MySQL and Postgres databases. If you do not need an application that is exclusive to Windows then Linux is a better option because of lower costs. Web hosts often charge less for licenses for providing services to Linux rather than to Windows. Other benefits for choosing Linux over Windows is that a Linux hosted server can be easily reversed to Windows but the reverse is not possible. Filenames and directories used on the Linux servers are case sensitive whereas those used on windows are case insensitive. A lot of scripting tools used on both the programs are also the same.
Tips and comments
Some of the tips for improving you Linux web hosting experience are; get the right features for your project. There are different types of plans and packages. Some companies provide advertising etc to help your website. You also need to consider which language is being provided as some companies can provide hosting like Joomla hosting, PHP hosting, ASP hosting, VBulletin, ModxCMS, or Drupal. Make sure while getting a hosting plan that the plan you get is a high performance hosting plan. If your budget only allows you to go for shared Linux web hosting then try to go for the top ten shared hosting companies. Options like VPS and dedicated hosting are also available even thought they aren’t as cheap as shared hosting their web hosting experience is better. Also check which sort of support options are being provided, some provide options like email other like live chat etc. The faster the support the better host you will be.
