Each and every personal computer or web server is run by an Operating System - the low-level program which interacts with the computer hardware, including peripherals such as a mouse or a printer, together with any applications that are present on the system. Any program input through a command line or a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is processed by sending an Application Program Interface (API) request to the Operating System. On a server, each and every app runs within the parameters specified by the OS as well - priority, physical memory, processing time, and so on. This is valid for both standard Internet site scripts and server-side software like a media server. If a virtual server is created on a physical one, there can be two separate Operating Systems, referred to as guest OS and host OS, so that you can set up a different software environment on a single machine.
Multiple OS in VPS Servers
If you decide to go for one of our VPS server plans, you will be able to opt for one of the three Linux releases that we offer for the Operating System of the servers - CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian. They're among the most widely used and most reliable server OSs out there and we offer them so that you have a choice for the software environment of your machine if you intend to install some app with precise requirements with regards to the packages that should be present on the hosting server. We also offer three internet hosting Control Panels and which one of them you can use depends on the OS that you've chosen. We leave the possibility to change the server Operating System open, so when you want to use an application that requires an OS different from the one that's already present, we can always re-install the VPS. In addition, we can keep the OS up-to-date weekly by installing any security updates that may be released.
Multiple OS in Dedicated Servers
We offer three Operating Systems with our dedicated server packages - CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian. They're all different Linux distributions and we offer them not only because they're free and they will not increase the price of your new web hosting server, but also because they are very secure and stable. Each of them is backed up by a big community of developers, so you'll be able to choose from a large number software packages that you could install on your server in case the application that you intend to work with has certain requirements. The Operating System will also determine what hosting Control Panel you can use since the Control Panels that we offer are compatible with specific OSs only and because we would like to provide you with as much flexibility as possible, we offer a couple of OSs and multiple Control Panels. In case you get a server with a certain Operating System, we can change it upon request if it turns out that you need another one. We will also keep the OS updated on a weekly basis as a part of the optional Managed Services upgrade.