An Operating System is the software which interacts with the hardware of a computer and functions as the intermediary between applications and the hardware, which includes peripherals such as a printer, a mouse or a keyboard. When you run software, it transfers requests to the OS using an API (Application Program Interface) and the communication is done through a command line or a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Similar to a personal computer, hosting servers also use an Operating System which functions as a host for all of the software installed on them, including script apps or server-side software such as a flash server, a VOIP server, etc. A virtual machine can be generated on a physical one, so it is possible to install a guest OS on it and have a different system environment compared to the physical server host Operating System.
Multiple OS in Dedicated Servers
We offer three Operating Systems with our dedicated server plans - CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian. They're all different Linux distributions and we offer them not only because they're totally free and they won't increase the cost of your new server, but also because they are really stable and secure. Each one of them is supported by a huge community of developers, so you'll be able to choose from a large number software packages that you can install on your server if the app that you would like to employ has specific requirements. The Operating System will also determine what hosting Control Panel you can use because the Control Panels that we offer run on specific OSs only and because we want to provide you with as much freedom as possible, we offer multiple OSs and multiple Control Panels. If you choose a server with a given Operating System, we could change it upon request in the event that it turns out that you need alternative one. We can also keep the OS updated on a weekly basis as a part of our optional Managed Services upgrade.