Linux is an Operating System, which is not that commonly used for desktop machines, but is amongst the most frequently used OSs for web servers. It is absolutely free, so you will not need to pay any license charges as part of your web hosting payments. Linux is also considered to be the most secure OS around and due to the permissions that files have and also the file types that can be run, virus files which may infect a regular computer system shall simply not be executed on a Linux-based server. Moreover, the OS is 100 % free, so it can easily be changed with no constraints, so that it will suit the requirements of the hosting provider and their customers. This means that unneeded software packages could be removed to make the OS lighter and a lot quicker, that may directly result in much better server performance. Numerous Linux machines have the Apache web server set up on them, because this program is also totally free, fast and reliable. It is the most popular web server around and is a part of the LAMP bundle that lots of script apps, such as WordPress and Joomla™, require. LAMP is an abbreviation for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.