Linux is an Operating System, which isn't that commonly used for desktop machines, but is one of the most widely used OSs for servers. It's 100 % free, so you won't have to pay any license fees as part of your web hosting payments. Linux is also thought of as the most reliable OS around and because of the permissions which files have as well as the file types that can be run, virus files which can infect a normal computer system shall simply not be executed on a Linux-based web server. In addition, the Operating System is freeware, so it can easily be changed with no constraints, so as to suit the needs of the website hosting provider and their customers. This also suggests that unnecessary software packages can be removed to make the Operating system lighter and a lot quicker, that can directly contribute to much better hosting server performance. Lots of Linux machines have the Apache web server set up on them, as this application is also totally free, quick and stable. It's the most widely used web server out there and is an element of the LAMP bundle that numerous script applications, including Joomla™ and WordPress, require. LAMP is an abbreviation for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.