An Operating System is the low-level software that manages a computer. It handles how the hardware behaves, the communication with peripherals including a monitor, a printer or a keyboard, the allocation of memory between the installed applications, and the prioritization of apps when several run at once. Each and every program that's installed on a desktop or a laptop functions by sending requests to the OS for various services using an application program interface (API). The interaction with the OS can be performed via a Graphical User Interface (GUI) or a command line. In the hosting field, the Operating System is what runs a web server along with any software installed on it, which includes not only website scripts, but also any other application for example a VOIP or a game server. If there are virtual machines created, they work with a guest OS which runs on the server host OS.

Multiple OS in Dedicated Servers

We offer three Operating Systems with our dedicated server plans - CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian. They are all different Linux distributions and we offer them not only because they're completely free and they will not increase the low price of your new web hosting server, but also because they are extremely stable and secure. Each one of them is supported by a huge community of developers, so you'll be able to choose from countless software packages that you can install on your server if the application that you want to employ 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 since we want to give you as much versatility as possible, we offer a couple of OSs and multiple Control Panels. If you get a server with a certain Operating System, we can change it upon request in case it turns out that you need a different one. We can also keep the OS updated on a weekly basis as part of the optional Managed Services upgrade.