Each notebook or desktop or web server is run by an Operating System - the low-level software that interacts with the computer hardware, including peripheral devices such as a mouse and a printer, along with any apps that are currently installed on the system. Any program input using 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 app runs within the parameters set by the OS as well - priority, physical memory, processing time, etcetera. This goes for both standard site scripts and server-side software such as a media server. When a virtual server is generated on a physical one, there can be two separate Operating Systems, called guest OS and host OS, so that you can set up a different software environment on the same machine.
Multiple OS in Dedicated Servers
We offer three Operating Systems with our dedicated server packages - CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian. They are all different Linux distributions and we offer them not only because they are cost-free so they won't increase the price of your new web hosting server, but also because they are extremely secure and stable. Each of them is backed up by a big community of web developers, so you'll be given the option to choose from a large number software packages that you can install on your server if the app that you intend to employ has specific requirements. The Operating System will also determine what web hosting Control Panel you can use since the Control Panels that we offer are compatible with particular OSs only and since we want to give you as much adaptability as possible, we offer a couple of OSs and multiple Control Panels. If you choose a server with a given OS, we can change it upon request if it turns out that you'll need another one. We will also keep the OS updated on a weekly basis as a part of our additional Managed Services upgrade.