Linux is an OS, that is not that frequently used for desktop machines, but is amongst the most commonly used OSs for web servers. It is free of charge, so you shall not have to pay any license fees as part of your web hosting payments. Linux is also considered to be the most reliable OS available and because of the permissions that files have and the file types that can be run, virus files which may infect a regular PC will simply not be executed on a Linux-based web server. Additionally, the OS is free, so it could be customized with no limitations, in order to match the needs of the hosting provider and their clients. This means that unwanted software packages can be removed to make the OS lighter and a lot quicker, which can directly result in much better hosting server performance. Lots of Linux machines have the Apache web server set up on them, due to the fact that this piece of software is also free, quick and secure. It's the most popular web server available and is a part of the LAMP bundle that a great many script applications, including WordPress and Joomla™, need. LAMP is an abbreviation for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.