Using Linux As Your Operating System

Linux/Unix is an open source operating system that is being adopted by a large number of organisations and businesses. The Linux/Unix-based platform is a stable platform and is well respected in the web hosting industry.

Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds as an alternative to other operating systems. Most versions of Linux are available for free. The most popular Linux software is Red Hat and Mandrake.

Linux/Unix was only really used by professionals until a few years ago but the situation has changed. Many organisations and small businesses have switched to the Linux/Unix platform because it is open source, meaning that users can change the program so that it suits their own needs.

Web hosts are specializing in Linux/Unix servers and the demand for this type of hosting has grown by 40% recently.  A Unix-based platform is one of the most trusted operating systems that you can ever have. It has a better up time than Microsoft operating systems, and hosting programs that reside on Linux/Unix are more flexible. Linux/Unix provides more reliability and adaptability than many other operating systems.

Linux/Unix supports a wide variety of application languages, more than any other operating system. The most languages include C, C++, Shell, Perl, Tcl, Python, Java and PHP.  Databases available for Unix include mSQL and mySQL. The one that you choose would depend on what you plan to do on the web and the host that you choose to park your web site.

Linux/Unix will become a major force in the future as more web sites use it as a hosting platform.

There are several web sites and forums available so that you can find out more about Linux/Unix and web hosting in general. One such site is HTML Articles. Articles on these web sites range from building an email list to internet merchant accounts.