Oh no! We’re talking about software again! We have more choices to make: Windows or Linux? With Linux, what distribution should I look for? Most hosting providers run some version of Linux and the LAMP stack (Linux Apache MySql PHP). Most of the hosting providers I’ve looked at run Ubuntu, CentOS, or RedHat. If you have experience with a particular distribution, you may prefer one over the other. However, for most users, it will not make a huge difference as you will probably not be making any major configuration changes to the initial setup. Some of hosting providers including MediaTemple and Rackspace offer advice on what package will fit your needs. If it’s a simple site, this choice is easy to make anyway; and if it is a huge, more complicated site that can grow to millions of users, you will want to visit the specifics of the host with your developer. For now, let’s go over some basics:
Windows machines, although dominating the home and business PC market, have not had the same impact on the web server market. Although you can run most CMS software on WAMP (Windows Apache MySQL PHP) stack on a Windows server, you will have fewer options for hosting providers and probably have to pay more. If you don’t know what Linux, MySQL or PHP is, don’t worry: you don’t really need to know the technical aspects of what they are and how they work, you just need to know if your host supports them or not and what your content management system will need. The system requirements for your CMS of choice will include the technology stack and version that you need to use to run them.
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