Questions about getting the right vps package.

[Andromedus]

I have a few questions about vps servers. I know that some of these are not specifically related to sfs, but it seems that in order to get sfs working in any meaningful way, I'm going to have to buy a vps package, and I want to make sure I get the right one. Hopefully someone can help clarify things for me!

1. I'm in the UK. Should I buy hosting which is also based in the UK, or doesn't it matter? The people who will eventually play my games are likely to come from all over the world so as far as I can tell at the moment, the only advantage of getting a local host is that I can pay in my own currency.

2. I'm completely new when it comes to Linux, but I have read here that it is the best option for hosting SFS. Whilst looking at vps packages, all seem to offer different variations of linux - devian, centos, fedora, ubuntu, and others probably that I can't remember. Which one is the best for running SFS?

3. I have no idea what to expect to see on my screen when I buy a linux vps package. Will it be like I'm sitting infront of my windows pc now with nice icons and such, or am I just going to see a black screen with a command line? As I would surely prefer the former, is it advisable to buy a package which includes a control panel? Does this make installation of SFS easier, or make no difference? And, although I know this isn't sfs related, if I want to use things like ftp, php and mysql, would a control panel be needed/helpful for those?

Many thanks,

Ric.

[Lapo]

Hello,

1. I'm in the UK. Should I buy hosting which is also based in the UK, or doesn't it matter? The people who will eventually play my games are likely to come from all over the world so as far as I can tell at the moment, the only advantage of getting a local host is that I can pay in my own currency.

It doesn't matter, use what's most convenient for you.

2. I'm completely new when it comes to Linux, but I have read here that it is the best option for hosting SFS. Whilst looking at vps packages, all seem to offer different variations of linux - devian, centos, fedora, ubuntu, and others probably that I can't remember. Which one is the best for running SFS?

Avoid Centos, all the other should be good.

3. I have no idea what to expect to see on my screen when I buy a linux vps package. Will it be like I'm sitting infront of my windows pc now with nice icons and such, or am I just going to see a black screen with a command line? As I would surely prefer the former, is it advisable to buy a package which includes a control panel? Does this make installation of SFS easier, or make no difference? And, although I know this isn't sfs related, if I want to use things like ftp, php and mysql, would a control panel be needed/helpful for those?

If you are not familiar with Linux at all, get a VPS running Windows!
Really. Don't force yourself into something that you don't know unless you are ready to study a couple of Linux books and spend time to learn it.

If not, go with what you already know to avoid headaches.

And yes a centralized control panel is highly desirable to avoid having to mess with each service separately.

Good luck

[Andromedus]

Thank you for your answers - very helpful. I'll try and find a windows package.

Cheers.

[dingo]

i've found two interesting hosts:

http://vps.net and http://www.10tb.com

i like the offer from vps, that they will help you setup your server for i think another 80 dollars. 10tb has nice bandwidth though....

[scottBH]

Why should we avoid CentOS? (I use CentOS on my server.)

[Lapo]

We have had a number of clients reporting JVM crashes on CentOS. Most of them were able to fix the problem by upgrading their Java runtimes to the latest version.

We tend to recommend our clients to use other Linux distributions (Debian, Fedora...) to avoid such hassle (probably just a small % of CentOS installation has that problem, we are unable to say)

[scottBH]

Huh. It hasn't crashed on me yet. Are there any common conditions that have reportedly led to the crash on CentOS? I haven't gone beyond just a few users, so I'm not sure if that's why I've had such good "luck" so far.

[Lapo]

I wouldn't worry too much. CentOS seems a very popular OS among hosting companies, probably because of its accompanying tools?
In any case I think it was just a small % that was having problems and usually on older versions.