An Introduction to UNIX Web Hosting

What Is UNIX? UNIX was first developed in AT&T’s Bell Laboratories in the early 1970′s. In the four decades of use, the UNIX operating system has earned the reputation as one of the most powerful, versatile and flexible secure operating systems around.

The UNIX operating system has been under constant development ever since its inception. It is extremely stable system for servers, desktops and laptops.

UNIX systems also have a graphical user interface similar to Microsoft Windows which provides an easy to use environment. In the early 1980′s, UNIX systems began to grow rapidly and was noticed by industry analysts and researchers. Throughout the 1980′s, the debate about the strengths and weaknesses of UNIX systems often raged. And, in an effort to further differentiate competing UNIX system products, analysts kept developing and adding features of their own.

Why Should I Choose UNIX?

You should choose the platform based on your website needs. Define specific functions you need your website to perform along with the programming language and database required to perform them.

What is Free BSD and OpenBSD?

There are two main Unix-based operating systems: FreeBSD and OpenBSD. The good thing about these systems is that they seem to be very stable once you install them on your machines. OpenBSD is also known to be one of the most secure operating system in the world. But with OpenBSD you will have to sacrifice some features for security. Again the best thing about these systems is that they are both free.

What Scripting Languages Are Available For UNIX?

UNIX supports a wide variety of application languages, more than any other operating system. The most common include C, C++, Shell, Perl, Tcl, Python, Java and PHP.

What Databases Does UNIX Support?

Databases available for UNIX are SQL and mySQL. Which one you choose depends on your needs and what your Web Hosting Provider offers. This is an important item for you to review when choosing your web hosting company.

Why is UNIX better for your hosting purposes?

Most obviously because it is cheaper than Windows. It is also more reliable and secure. About 70% of the internet web servers run UNIX/LINUX operating system.

What Is Linux?

Linux is an Open Source Unix-type operating system. A young student named Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland initially created it as a hobby. Today, it has become quite popular worldwide because of its functionality and availability. This is functionally very similar to UNIX, so most web servers will use Linux.

Linux is a very popular open source operating system today and several users run websites that support PHP. Many really enjoy the open-source atmosphere and is the reason it continues to grow.

What Is Apache?

The Apache HTTP Server is an open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows NT. Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since 1996 because of its reputation as a secure, efficient and extensible server, in sync with the current HTTP standards.

best unix hosting

How can the best business web hosting service provider be selected? This is not any trivial suggestion since it is far-reaching. All of us remain busy in the hunt for a highly regarded, trustworthy and steady web hosting service provider and it’s also the time for you to do the same. While on one hand a number of IPS do offer this service, there are others also. Lots of firms do take the onus of hosting site for free or reasonable prices. Apart from this several web site developers do undertake the responsibility of hosting the site. The scene is quite baffling. Which one will you go for?

What are the things that you will look for in an effective web host? Well, you can opt for a business web hosting service provider by means of considering its status, years in operation, existing number of customers, rates it charges and whether CGI script and e-commerce support is offered. You must also take into account whether it has already been black listed by any IPS.

As far as hardware requirements and server platforms are concerned, prefer a host that offers an apposite server platform and in this context one that supports UNIX is the best. What shall be the band width then? In this respect, make a firm assessment of the expected site traffic and select a host that presents the corresponding bandwidth as soon as you pick a business web hosting service provider. If unusually large volumes of traffic are expected, 40 GB to 100 GB in bandwidth may be required.

In the section of domain name and email addresses allocation pick out a host that proffers to register your own exclusive domain name and the number of email addresses and aliases support offered.

To finish, go for a host that introduce 24 hours, 7 days a week support and one that has skilled and competent technicians.

Rectifying ?Out of space on EAFS? Error in UNIX Open Server

One of the most significant responsibility of SCO Open Server system administrator is to make sure that there is enough disk space for the user. For this purpose, you need to monitor free space in the file system and take appropriate actions whenever the free space gets low. Amount of free disk space depends upon the size of hard drive containing file system and number of files on disk. But in case if the space gets decreased, file system corruption might occur and you come across data loss situations. At this point, it become essential to carry out SCO Data Recovery to get your valuable data back.

The SCO Open Server system operates best if at least 15% of total disk space in the file system is free. When the file system space gets less than 15%, the operating system and system operations become sluggish. When the file system does not have sufficient space, you might come across any of the below given error message on a EAFS (Extended Acer File System) file system volume:

“Out of space on EAFS dev hd (major/minor)”

Or

“No space on EAFS”

When the file system become out of space, your UNIX system stops responding and you can not access anything from the drive and write attempts also fail. In these cases, your system might not boot up and you come across data loss situations.

When you encounter this problem, follow underwritten steps for EAFS Recovery:

Remove files from /tmp directory. Remove unused files from the hard drive and free up disk space. Locate large files and either remove them or compress them. Find unused system files and delete them. Clear system log. Add extra disk space.

When these methods can not help you to correct the problem and your file system gets damaged, carrying out SCO Data Recovery becomes necessary. This is best possible using third party recovery applications, which are capable of handling most of such cases.

These EAFS Recovery software use advanced scanning mechanisms to thoroughly scan the affected drive and retrieve all of the data from it. They come equipped with self-descriptive and interactive graphical user interface and thus allow you to carry out Do It Yourself recovery. With read only and non destructive conduct, these tools are completely safe to use.

Stellar Phoenix (SCO Open Server) Data Recovery is the most excellent solution for all of such data loss situations. It supports recovery from HTFS and EAFS file system volumes. This software is helpful in all cases of data loss such as virus infection, file system corruption, operation system malfunction and so forth.

The Career Path Of Unix Administration

Unix is the system language used by IT companies and corporates alike. Unix administration allows interaction between operating systems and associated software. Those who anticipate a career in this field, need to have a specialized qualification.

Good trouble shooting skills, reasoning, dedication and good logic are required in order to become a unix administrator. This position involves a lot of responsibility and is a position sought after by many people in the IT industry. Several training courses facilitate specialized training in this field.

Potential candidates should have strong mathematical abilities. Logic and proper reasoning are essential components for a person in this position. It is unnecessary to have degrees in engineering or to have a B. A. In order to be competent in unix administration. Accredited training from a suitable learning institution is all that is required.

The training available for this position offered at learning institutions will improve your practical knowledge as well as theory. You will be able to network with other people involved in unix at these courses. Making contacts for future job prospects can also be done at these courses. The Internet is a great resource to keep you updated with developments in the area of unix.

Successful completion of your training allows you to take the certification exam or apply for a job although you do not have a certificate. The training often carries more weight than a certificate does.

The position of unix administrator is key in any company. Continual updating of skills and knowledge is critical for the person holding this position. This is often paid for by your employer and makes for a good incentive to expand your knowledge on the topic.

Remuneration for these positions is very high in this industry. Long hours and working overtime is a distinct possibility for all candidates. Most larger companies cannot afford for their technology to be offline at any point in time. Mental and physical toughness are attributes that will serve you well in this job.

The system administrator has a variety of tasks to fulfill. A good general computing knowledge is essential in order to succeed in the field of unix.

This position comprises of six different areas of responsibility. Software management is the first. This includes removing, updating, installing and testing of software. Managing users and access controls involves a deep understanding of levels within a company. Deleting and adding users will happen frequently. The administrator will be responsible for backups, security and server management. This is a big responsibility, which, if not done properly, could result in great losses for the company. Routing, host configuration and subnetting affects the company’s web hosting services. This falls within the ambit of network administration. Arranging for mobile users by configuring their notebooks, falls under desktop administration.

Most large companies have specified and defined roles for employees. In smaller companies, the administrator may need to be a jack-of-all-trades. This means that position of Unix administration will not suit a person who likes a defined role in the work place.

The Career Path Of Unix Administration

Unix is the system language used by IT companies and corporates alike. Unix administration allows interaction between operating systems and associated software. Those who anticipate a career in this field, need to have a specialized qualification.

Good trouble shooting skills, reasoning, dedication and good logic are required in order to become a unix administrator. This position involves a lot of responsibility and is a position sought after by many people in the IT industry. Several training courses facilitate specialized training in this field.

Potential candidates should have strong mathematical abilities. Logic and proper reasoning are essential components for a person in this position. It is unnecessary to have degrees in engineering or to have a B. A. In order to be competent in unix administration. Accredited training from a suitable learning institution is all that is required.

The training available for this position offered at learning institutions will improve your practical knowledge as well as theory. You will be able to network with other people involved in unix at these courses. Making contacts for future job prospects can also be done at these courses. The Internet is a great resource to keep you updated with developments in the area of unix.

Successful completion of your training allows you to take the certification exam or apply for a job although you do not have a certificate. The training often carries more weight than a certificate does.

The position of unix administrator is key in any company. Continual updating of skills and knowledge is critical for the person holding this position. This is often paid for by your employer and makes for a good incentive to expand your knowledge on the topic.

Remuneration for these positions is very high in this industry. Long hours and working overtime is a distinct possibility for all candidates. Most larger companies cannot afford for their technology to be offline at any point in time. Mental and physical toughness are attributes that will serve you well in this job.

The system administrator has a variety of tasks to fulfill. A good general computing knowledge is essential in order to succeed in the field of unix.

This position comprises of six different areas of responsibility. Software management is the first. This includes removing, updating, installing and testing of software. Managing users and access controls involves a deep understanding of levels within a company. Deleting and adding users will happen frequently. The administrator will be responsible for backups, security and server management. This is a big responsibility, which, if not done properly, could result in great losses for the company. Routing, host configuration and subnetting affects the company’s web hosting services. This falls within the ambit of network administration. Arranging for mobile users by configuring their notebooks, falls under desktop administration.

Most large companies have specified and defined roles for employees. In smaller companies, the administrator may need to be a jack-of-all-trades. This means that position of Unix administration will not suit a person who likes a defined role in the work place.

Download UNIX Via The Internet

Here is a list of operating software available in the internet for anyone to download UNIX. Firstly it is the FreeBSD UNIX. It is an operating system suitable for 86 compatible such as the Athlon, Pentium and 64 compatible such as Athlon 64, Opteron and EM64T, IA-64, Ultra SPARC and Alpha architectures. This UNIX is derived from the version manufactured at the UC Berkeley, named BSD.

Another system is the OpenBSD UNIX. It is a free and multi-platform 4.4BSD-based operating system that prioritizes the standardization, proactive security, portability, integrated cryptography as well as correctness. This UNIX operating system supports binary emulation for majority of the programs from Linux, HP-UX, SunOS, BSD/OS and Solaris.

The Solaris UNIX is an enterprise-class operating system, being the top UNIX environment. It is not only able to provide availability, scalability and performance; it can provide security on AMD Opteron, SPARC and Intel Xeon-based systems. The Solaris 10 operating system is the latest release that is capable of reducing the risks, complexity and costs related to today’s enormous computing environment via a couple of new technologies. It is the favorite among users who intend to download UNIX as it can give organization the technologies and tools to confidently invent dominant computing infrastructures. In fact, the Solaris 10 operating system is incorporated with the most popular open source applications and packages such as the Samba, Tomcat, Secure Shell and Apache.

Fedora Linux is known for its famous goal of collaborating with the Linux community to construct a complete operating system exclusively using free software. The development of this UNIX operating system is done in the public forum. The project will generate the releases of Fedora Core at least twice a year. The Red Hat is the engineering team involved in the construction of Fedora Core and they have consistently encouraging participation from outsiders. This is mainly because Red Hat intends to come out with a free software operating system that is able to approach closely to the community.

You can also consider the Debian Linux before you download UNIX into your computer. The Debian is also a free operating system, meaning the set of programs and basic utilities will aid in operating your computer. It utilizes the Linux “kernel”, the heart of an operating system although most of the fundamental tools originated from the GNU project. Either the Debian Linux or GNU, both are enclosed with up to 8710 software packages available for you to install on your device.

Ubuntu Linux, on the other hand, is the community developed operating system. It works best for desktops, laptops and serves. It contains all the required applications such as email applications, web processing, programming tools and web server software. It is totally free of charge and there are no licensing fees.

 

Seven Basic Ingredients of Unix Hosting

Though often overshadowed by the market dominated Windows and Linux platform, Unix remains a widely used platform and a popular option for web hosting.  This article will introduce you to seven features commonly found in Unix hosting plans.  Though basic, these features are very important and should not be underestimated.

1.) POP3 Email Accounts – An example of a POP3 email account would be “mailto:yourname@yoursite.comyourname@yoursite.com“.  Most hosting companies will provide you with a large number of email accounts to use for yourself or distribute to your employees.

2.) Webmail and SMTP – As soon as your website goes live, email will likely become your main source of communication.  The tool you need to make this an easy process is a webmail program such as Horde or Squirrelmail.  This process can be even faster when downloading your messages to email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora.  However, in order for this to work, you need a Unix hosting solution that supports messaging protocols such as IMAP and SMTP.

3.) Spam Filter - It doesn’t matter who you are, no email user is immune to spam messages.  In this day and age of the internet, having a reliable spam filter is a must.  These applications are installed on the web server where your site resides and typically offer features such as blacklisting, whitelisting and greylisting to mitigate spam.  The more flexible filters will allow you to make configurations to tag spam and have it delivered straight to a quarantine folder to keep it from cluttering your inbox.

4.) FTP Accounts - FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a method that allows you to upload your files and maintain them on the server.  A Unix host that supports this protocol usually provides the ability to create a certain number of FTP sub-accounts.  This allows you to provide your clients and users with access to password-protected directories, which is very useful for sharing files in a more efficient and secure manner.

5.) Backup Utility - While most web hosts perform automated backups on a regular basis, you should never put the fate of your website in their hands.  There are many ways to backup your website data, but the easiest way is with a utility specifically designed for this task.  Most of today’s control panels come included with built-in utilities that allow you to easily backup your site in minutes.

6.) Web Stats – Analyzing your visitors and traffic can play a crucial role in the success of your site.  Popular web stat software such as AwStats and Webalizer run on the back-end of the server and can provide you with detailed reports on your statistics.  This can give you the knowledge to make the needed adjustments or additions that increase traffic and boost sales.

7.) PHP and MySQL – Similar to Linux, almost all Unix plans come with support for PHP server-side programming and the MySQL database server.  These features are generally provided for no extra costs and can give you the power to create a dynamic, data-driven website.

Unix Hosting ? General Review

First of all let’s see what hosting is. Hosting is a service which gives a disk space for any physical allocation of a site on a server, permanently being in the Internet. This service can also include of a place for mail correspondence, various databases, and support of this server functioning. Besides, as a rule, hosting service supposes registration of domain names.

It is necessary to say that hosting is divided into paid and free, paid hosting does not have advertising and its base services are much more reliable.

Now developers have worked hard to facilitate administration of sites under UNIX, and at present there is almost no difference between platforms UNIX and Windows if we compare them in ease of handle and usage. If you know and prefer to use shell you will select UNIX. And if you only start the path and are at a stage of developing, you can easily deal with the control panel and with UNIX Web-interface.

Also, you should pay attention that experts consider UNIX more reliable. This is really a fine solution. If you have decided to create your own resource, you will certainly want it to be ideal, and UNIX platform is both reliable and simple in usage. At solving hosting problems, UNIX platform is more quick in actions.

It is worthy to add that many users choose the Windows platform only because it seems to them easier and must be not so difficult to understand.

And the most important thing in hosting is its cost, and in it it is necessary to mark that UNIX now differs very strongly from Windows as the majority of products under UNIX extends under a free license and also it is easier to achieve desirable level of reliability and understanding on UNIX. For this reason now more and more people trust their resources to the UNIX platform.
It is necessary to note that the UNIX operating system always was a reliable, flexible and widespread platform exactly for rendering of hosting services. Many banks and systems of electronic commerce have stopped their choice on this platform, as it is faster than other platforms, and it is very safe. The choice of huge companies falls on this platform too. A stable UNIX system became a unique choice for many companies, unlike Microsoft NT/2000, UNIX does not use GUI (Graphical User Interface), that is why the Unix platform has more capabilities to concentrate a major part of resources for a complete service of virtual web-servers.

UNIX as a hosting platform has a lot of advantages. Among them there is an amount of free scripts and additions, possibility to use Perl, PHP3/4 and mySQL Server.

is necessary to say that hosting is divided into paid and free, paid hosting does not have advertising and its base services are much more reliable.

Now developers have worked hard to facilitate administration of sites under UNIX, and at present there is almost no difference between platforms UNIX and Windows if we compare them in ease of handle and usage. If you know and prefer to use shell you will select UNIX. And if you only start the path and are at a stage of developing, you can easily deal with the control panel and with UNIX Web-interface.

Also, you should pay attention that experts consider UNIX more reliable. This is really a fine solution. If you have decided to create your own resource, you will certainly want it to be ideal, and UNIX platform is both reliable and simple in usage. At solving hosting problems, UNIX platform is more quick in actions.

It is worthy to add that many users choose the Windows platform only because it seems to them easier and must be not so difficult to understand.

And the most important thing in hosting is its cost, and in it it is necessary to mark that UNIX now differs very strongly from Windows as the majority of products under UNIX extends under a free license and also it is easier to achieve desirable level of reliability and understanding on UNIX. For this reason now more and more people trust their resources to the UNIX platform.

It is necessary to note that the UNIX operating system always was a reliable, flexible and widespread platform exactly for rendering of hosting services. Many banks and systems of electronic commerce have stopped their choice on this platform, as it is faster than other platforms, and it is very safe. The choice of huge companies falls on this platform too. A stable UNIX system became a unique choice for many companies, unlike Microsoft NT/2000, UNIX does not use GUI (Graphical User Interface), that is why the Unix platform has more capabilities to concentrate a major part of resources for a complete service of virtual web-servers.

UNIX as a hosting platform has a lot of advantages. Among them there is an amount of free scripts and additions, possibility to use Perl, PHP3/4 and mySQL Server.

How to Uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers

Why you need to Uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers?

Are you feeling frustrated by finding the answer of how to uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers? Due to its high- engineered and good quality detection technology, Dr.Web for Unix mail servers has become one of the most popular virus removal tools. It is designed to provide you with absolutely reliable, efficient and professional methods to safely and quickly scan and remove viruses and spyware from your PC, forcibly keep spyware and viruses at bay, and effectively stop unsolicited and virus-infected emails from spreading across various systems. Although Dr.Web for Unix mail servers is quite beneficial for your PC, due to certain reasons, you may want to uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers from your system.

How to Uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers in Windows XP operating system?

To uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers from your Windows XP operating system, perform the following steps:

Run the Start menu, and then go to Control Panel.
In the Control Panel, double-click on the Add or Remove Programs.
Scroll through the list displayed in the Add or Remove Programs box and select one of the Symantec, Norton, or Live Update options listed.
Select the Remove or Change/Remove button to start the uninstall process.
Repeat the process for related entries included in the list.
Exit the Add or Remove Programs option and restart your computer if it does not restart automatically.
Search for and remove all Symantec and Norton folders from your system.

How to Uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers with Only One Click?

Due to the fact that the technology of Dr.Web for Unix mail servers is so complicated, to remove Dr.Web for Unix mail servers directly from the system is not an easy task. Even if you are a computer professional, to clean the leftovers of the removal process of Dr.Web for Unix mail servers proves to be very dangerous. If you want to uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers within few clicks, I highly recommend you to install the best uninstall tool to safely and easily uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers.

A great program that does this is called the Perfect Uninstaller. Why don’t you take a look at how it works? Visit: Uninstall Dr.Web for Unix mail servers.

 

Choosing Between Windows or UNIX as a Web Hosting OS

Before you can narrow your search for a web hosting service, the single biggest decision facing you is the type of operating system you are interested in.  This decision alone will narrow the field down of potential provider significantly, and narrow down the packages you will be researching and comparing.

In general, there are several major criteria used when selecting and web hosting service, and these are all impacted by the operating system:

Performance Features Stability Price

Traditionally UNIX was the hosting service of choice due to its advantage in these four areas, but the gap between the two big operating systems as a hosting choice continues to close and get blurred quite often.  Here is a breakdown of where they stand today:

Performance

UNIX systems still tend to win in this area, due to several key factors – memory (RAM) requirements and OS tune ability.  Windows was developed as an operating system to make it easy for wide range of people to use, from the highly skilled to the less computer inclined.  UNIX was developed more for server usage, and the average skilled computer person would not be able to use and manage this OS on a daily basis.  Because of this difference in background, UNIX will perform better as a server than a Windows box on the same hardware – Windows needs more RAM to compete with UNIX, but UNIX will still beat it out due to its ability to tune virtually everything, down the very core of the OS itself.

Let me be clear about this, I am not saying that UNIX is a better OS than Windows, just that it is a better performing hosting environment.  Windows beats UNIX out in usability, development tools, maintainability, and many other areas.

But don’t stop reading here – performance is the least of your concerns when choosing a web hosting service.  Because you will most likely be choosing a shared hosting environment, you have very little control over the resources of the machine as related to your hosted website – you will be sharing memory, hard drive access, CPU, and network bandwidth with hundreds of other websites anyway.  At any given moment in time one of the other websites might be spiking in activity and cause your website to response slowly.

In a virtual private server or a dedicated server, UNIX would be the best choice in the performance category, but in a shared environment the gap is not a factor.

Features

Both Windows and UNIX come fully loaded with a wide range of features, and quite a few are shared between the two.  If you were to manage the machine directly, you would most like choose Windows due to its easier to use interface.  But this is not the case when speaking of a web hosting account.  All hosting companies use a control panel to allow users to manage their account and websites, and all of the control panels are web based, and many are cross-platform.  All of these control panels are identical in functionality – they provide a web user interface to all of the underlying OS, web server, and files on the hosting service.  Both operating systems support remote access (UNIX with telnet/SSH shell, Windows with Remote Desktop) and ftp file management as well.

The biggest difference in features between the two operating systems is the development tools available.  Both support the major scripting languages used to create websites such as PHP, PERL, Python, Ruby, and Java.  Both support extensions popular for adding to websites such as ColdFusion, FrontPage Extensions, Flash, etc.  Both have support for the free MySQL database, which usually resides on a separate machine at the hosting company anyway.  Windows has the advantage here in that is supports ASP, ASP.Net, ASP MVC, and MSSQL databases as well.  These are tools specific to some applications and may be a major requirement for you – obviously making this decision between the two operating systems easy.  Most Windows based web hosting packages will offer, at some price point, unlimited MySQL databases with unlimited disk space, but limited MSSQL databases with limited disk space.  This is due to the licensing requirements of MSSQL causing more expenses on the part of the web hosting service as the use more MSSQL databases for their customers.  MySQL and MSSQL are virtually identical in performance and features – just like the operating systems they differ mainly in the area of price and management abilities.

UNIX does have a slight advantage in many of the scripting languages due to its ability to compile into the web server (Apache, open source) the extensions needed to run the scripting languages.  Windows cannot due this with its web server (IIS) since it is a commercially sold application.  Windows and IIS must run most of the scripting languages as a CGI extension, which means they are launched as an external process to the web server, requiring slightly more startup overhead each time they are needed.  Microsoft has acknowledged this shortcoming with the latest IIS (version 7) and allows these scripting extensions to be more in process.  In the big picture it does not make much difference either way since this is really getting back into the area of performance – refer back to the prior discussion performance as to why it is of not much importance in a shared hosting environment.

UNIX has a slight advantage in available installable applications – most of the open source website projects (blogs, content management systems, shopping carts, web site builders)  install smoother under UNIX since they assume you are using other open source tools (Linux, MySQL, Apache).  Installing some of these on a Windows operating system require extra configuration or help from the web hosting support staff.  With the growth of cross platform control panels, this problem is shrinking over time.  Also there are Windows specific open source projects available for every need of your website that install clean and function nicely – but they may be younger and less developed than the UNIX counterpart.

Windows is the operating system of choice based on features, especially in the shared hosting environment and if you need any of the Microsoft technologies (ASP, ASP.Net, ASP MVC, MSSQL) to run your website.   Be careful if you have a need for one of the older scripting technologies (PHP, PERL, Python, Ruby) on a Windows hosting, they may not be available or perform poorly.

Stability

Windows has traditionally been dinged in the past in this area, but mainly due to its desktop operating systems, not its server operating systems.  Windows hosting packages will be running either Server 2003 or Server 2008, both of which do not have stability problems.  The desktop stability problems are mainly not Microsoft’s fault – almost every desktop Windows user is guilty of installing a wide range of various software packages and drivers, rendering the machine over time to be a blend of software that has never been tested with each other.

UNIX has traditionally and still shines in the area of stability – again due to its background of being developed as a server operating system.  It also has advantages over Windows in that complete server reboots are rarely needed as part of a installation of a third party software package – it has clearly defined system component drivers that can be rebooted without requiring a complete system reboot.

Both operating systems are equal in the area of stability – even in the shared hosting environment they both have adequate safeguards against individual websites on the same machine from causing harm or abruptly stopping the server.

Price

Windows still remains a slightly more expensive operating system to sell hosting accounts out of for two reasons – licensing and RAM requirements.  Web hosting companies have more expenses on a Windows server that hosts 100 websites than it does on a Linux server hosting 100 websites.  Typically companies also carry a Microsoft support agreement with annual expenses as well as the upfront licensing expenses of Windows – even though they all require a staff of knowledgeable and skilled technicians to manage the bank of servers regardless of the operating system.

Windows is also slightly more expensive with database support for you website – most web hosting offer a UNIX hosting package at some price point with unlimited MySQL databases and database disk space, but very few offer a Windows package at any price point with unlimited MSSQL databases and database disk space.  So if your website grows and needs more databases and disk space, you may be locked into paying a higher fee per month with MSSQL and Windows than you would with MySQL.

UNIX has the advantage in pricing, even though some hosting companies do now sell Windows and UNIX based accounts at the same price point, but most still have a slight increase of monthly fees for the Windows packages.

Summary

Let me be clear about this:  the choice of hosting your website in UNIX or Windows has nothing to do with the desktop operating system you use on a daily basis.  It has nothing to do with the management interface you will use to manage your website and hosting account.  It also is not about which operating system is better than the other.  Some people have a religious fervor for one or the other, but they are both just tools in the toolbox.  Which is better, a hammer or a screw driver?  It depends on the job at hand.

So here is a review of how the operating systems are in the four areas of criteria used when selecting and web hosting service:

Performance:  Tie in Virtual or Dedicated server, UNIX in a shared environment Features:  Windows, based on addition of Microsoft technologies Stability:  Tie Price:  UNIX

So, based on this discussion, your decision will be driven two simple questions:

1)      Do you require any of the Microsoft technologies?

2)      Are you willing pay a few extra dollars per month for the Windows and Microsoft technologies?

If you answer yes to the above questions, you should go with a Windows based web hosting package.  Otherwise you should move towards the UNIX based packages since it is a cheaper and faster.

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