Your first website is ready, and you wish to launch the same as soon as possible, for this, you need web hosting services for housing your website. For this, you need a good hosting company, and you have the name of company in your mind too. However, still, you are little bit unsure, as you have heard about two types of operating systems offered by most of the hosting companies; Linux and Windows.
You are well aware of the Windows but unfortunately not of Linux. You also heard that Linux is better than Windows. As Linux hosting is entirely new for you and with this you are a newbie to the world of websites and web hosting, so before choosing Linux server as your operating system to host your site, you certainly have some questions in your mind. In other words, as a beginner, you have some FAQ's related to Linux or Linux hosting.
This article cover most of those FAQ's and hope it will be quite useful to the readers of this article.

Some FAQ's related to Linux/ Linux Hosting, especially for Beginners

1. What is Linux
Linux, a most popular, reputed, powerful and versatile open source operating system, used by most of the web hosting companies, available at free of cost. It is considered as a market leader as it is a default OS for Shared hosting packages.

2. Is Linux really free
Linux is available for free of cost without any kind of restrictions.

3. Linux is Open Source, what it states
Linux source code is available for investigation and customization or modification. With this, it is developed in an open environment by one of the good programmers community.

4. Why Linux for hosting
Security- A safe, secure and worry-free OS, always updated.
Affordable- Linux is available for free, it reduces the costs for host leads to pass of savings to clients.
Standard- Things work out in a standard way from host to host.

5. In modern world, configuration of Linux is done as per the standard of LAMP.
L- Linux, the operating system
A- Apache, the web server application
M- MySQL, a Structured Query Language (SQL) database application
P- PHP, Hypertext Preprocessor, is a programming language by which dynamic web content is developed.
LAMP Standard offers you everything from A to Z, which is required to run a perfect and modern website.
Linux supports various development tools like WordPress or other Web apps, PHP, MySQL, CGI, Python, or Perl and Dreamweaver or other WYSIWYG apps.

6. Why Linux is the first choice of Hosts

  • Linux is scalable and powerful
  • Linux is scalable and powerful
  • Usually, it is free of cost
  • Used on old servers too
  • Large user community offers support to Linux
  • Host can customize it
  • Due to Control Panels

7. What are some popular distributions of Linux
It covers CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and Red Hat.

8. Why Linux is so much popular for the web servers

  • It is free.
  • It is not required to powered down the same on daily basis.
  • It is extremely flexible, suitable for the different web hosting plans of various hosting companies.
  • Your computer is running for a long time, and maybe it gets slower; this does not happen with Linux.

9. Is Linux server a good option, when Mac or Windows PC is used for a personal or work computer
Yes, definitely.

10. How Linux is a best server, although open source and free
Linux is available for free and an open source OS, does not show that it is a substandard. It is an enterprise level software which is used by giant mainframes, supercomputers, mobile phones, embedded devices, etc.

11. Is there any competitor or alternative to Linux
Yes, Windows is the only one, both a competitor and alternative in web hosting environment.

12. Why Linux over Windows
If User has a specific need, Windows is the right option. Otherwise, Linux is a default choice for hosting solutions.

13. When Linux is not preferable

  • .NET or .ASP platforms required Windows, instead of Linux servers.
  • Linux is not compatible with Windows applications and the coding conversions.
  • It cannot be used with some Microsoft technologies like Access, ASP or MS SQL.

14. Between Linux & Windows, which is good for web hosting
Linux, best for web hosting. It is concluded from a study done in 2013, that Linux server is used by more than 80 percent of enterprises.