Ubuntu, like CentOS, is a popular Linux distribution being used by many web hosting providers and businesses who like to use Linux as part of their IT infrastructure. However, unlike CentOS, Ubuntu is also available as a desktop Linux distribution meaning that some businesses choose to use it both on their web hosting servers and on their desktop machines. Like a majority of Linux distributions, Ubuntu is free to use therefore meaning that you can use it on as many web hosting servers as you with without having to pay a penny in license costs, on the other hand you could use a Windows server operating system instead and be forced to pay licensing and support fees.
Ubuntu web hosting provides users with a reliable form of web hosting since Ubuntu is still actively maintained meaning that there are regular patch releases and updates available to ensure that it is a secure operating system to use both server and desktop wise. Ubuntu is available as an operating system for a majority of VPS hosting packages, and can normally be installed on your dedicated server for you by request. Since Ubuntu is based on Linux, it means that there is a large number of existing programs available that can be made to run on Ubuntu desktop machines and servers with some modifications.
Since Ubuntu has a fairly nice GUI and specialist tools, it is liked by many multimedia designers who specialist in video design and music production. Ubuntu can also be easily updated which helps you as the end user ensure that your installation of Ubuntu is as secure as possible. Programs and packages that you have installed on your Ubuntu installation, along with the operating system itself, can all be updated using the ‘apt’ updater and installer. ‘Apt’ comes installed as part of a standard Ubuntu installation, the reason being that Ubuntu is based on the Debian sourcecode which ‘apt’ is based on.
Since Ubuntu is based on Debian sourcecode, it is one of the most secure and reliable Linux distributions around; this is because Debian itself is very secure and reliable and has been seen as the leader in the open source Linux distribution industry for a long time. In web hosting it is important to use a secure and reliable operating system since you want to ensure that your servers aren’t going to face any periods of downtime because you have chosen to use the wrong operating system.
Like with any web hosting operating system, you need to be able to ensure that Ubuntu is going to be able to run the programs that you need to function such as control panels, web servers, and mail server hosting applications. If you want to offer your own Linux web hosting packages then you will need to ensure that Ubuntu is able to support the cPanel control panel so that you can sell of your own web hosting packages. It is important to note that Ubuntu can already support various mail server and DNS server applications as well as the Apache web server.
Because of its advanced multimedia capabilities, Ubuntu is the preferred operating system of Linux web hosting providers who want to offer their web hosting services based on multimedia programs such as FFMPEG and other freely available tools. In this case you will also find that such web hosting providers will also host regular web hosting clients on the same server since Ubuntu is able to handle multimedia requests just as well as it can handle standard web page requests. In terms of client side use, Ubuntu doesn’t appear any different that any other Linux distribution would but in terms of management it is completely different.
Since Ubuntu is a completely different operating system in terms of how it is managed, you are only likely to be able to manage it easily to begin with if you have prior knowledge and experience on managing VPS servers and dedicated servers which are based on the Debian Linux distribution. If you are a web hosting system administrator who is already managing CentOS based servers then you will find that Ubuntu is a completely different beast in its own league, meaning that you may need to do some extra research in order to be able to manage an Ubuntu server correctly.
In conclusion, when choosing a VPS server or a dedicated server you will be better to choose a web hosting company that is able to offer you a choice of server operating systems. Although Ubuntu web hosting may have its advantages, its useless to you unless you are using it on the desktop or want to use a server for multimedia processes. If you plan on using your server solely for hosting a mail server for web server then you will be better off using the CentOS Linux distribution.
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