Hello all.
soon I'll became a new linode.com customer, (I had read a lot of positive reviews about linode.com VPS's)

but to be honest, it's my 1st time to be on a VPS
I have never worked on a *unix computer before.

and I want to use my VPS to my site only (not as a service provider)

so I'll need to know which platform (Debian,Ubuntu, etc) will be the right one for me?

also I have no idea which control panel I'll use.
(I was use cPanel on my shared host)
I need an easy, user-friendly free one.

any suggestion, help, link to the some documents are very welcome.

Out of the box, Ubuntu is by far the easiest to maintain. It's also stable enough for most purposes.

If the VPS is only for serving a few websites, you might even do without a control panel altogether, since all you need to do is to edit a few plain-text configuration files.

But if you want a nice browser-based control panel, give ISPconfig a try. It's not as feature-rich as the more popular Webmin/Virtualmin, but it's prettier
and the documentation contains a step-by-step installation guide for Ubuntu which you can just copy and paste.

By the way, remember that you don't need to force your VPS to do everything that a web host does. When I first signed up here, I saved a great deal of effort and frustration by outsourcing all my email to Google Apps and all the DNS stuff to Linode's own DNS manager. That way, you only need to worry about making your website work...

ok thanks mate, I'll use Ubuntu as I have read a lot of people opinions they all agree with what you said.



It'll only serve my forums. (one site)
so I may use the control panel once, or even never use it.
if you (or anyone)
can direct me to something that may help me about how I can control the things with out a control panel.



I can work with that. (except the mail thing, as I have never worked with google apps before, but I may try it once I get my site up and working in peace)
I'll just look after how I will install MySql, Apache, Php, and I don't think this will be hard to done.

any other points notes are very welcome.
also I still need to know about how to make the email system work.

If you're willing to do a lot of learning, this could be an awesome experience for you... but maintaining your own server, especially if you're not familiar with *nix, is a difficult thing and if I were you, I'd consider a managed solution.

Just my $.02.

_________________
Jay Faulkner
http://oldos.org

yes I love to learn, but I don't like that to affect my business.
but is linode.com provide a managed solution?

No.

sorry to here that.
but anyway. I'll host my site only on the VPS.
so all what I need is the essential stuff. (as a begin then I'll learn by practice),
(I already saw the get started video on linode.com which showed me how I'll start my very basic things, and with some searches I think I understood all about it)

like php/mysql/apache/ftp that's all.
and I have found this site too http://www.mysql-apache-php.com/
which contain an explains for how to set all of them using. using debian. if there is any deference with the command lines (used in the site) that will be something else with Ubuntu please note it for me.

also, after what I noted did you guys still advice me looking for a managed service, or go ahead and give this a try?

Do you have a spare machine around at home ?

If so, I'd recommend installing your distro of choice there first (Ubuntu, as above), and just playing around with the various How-to's to see if it all makes sense. If so, jump in with your VPS, -- you'll never look back.

It'll also give you something to test out modifications to your VPS site on, before inflicting them on your users.

there is another pc at home. but it's owned by my old brother lol.

but there is a plan to get a new laptop that I will use it with linux.

and anyway.. I just need little time.
to run my site as soon as possible then I may change my PC's OS to linux..
and play with it.

Just install VirtualBox on your Windows PC (it's free), and install Linux inside it. That way, you get your very own VPS on your home computer, and you don't have to worry about breaking anything.

By the way, even if you don't plan on using a control panel, the step-by-step install guide on ISPconfig's website (actually, the guides are posted on HowToForge) are pretty helpful. Just ignore the stuff you don't need (such as Bind9).

Quick and dirty webserver setup, assuming Ubuntu:

1) apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-php5 php5 php5-mysql mysql-server mysql-client (plus any php5 extensions you might need, such as php5-gd)

2) Copy all your stuff to /var/www

3) Point your web browser to your server's IP address.

By the way, DON'T USE FTP. It's an old and insecure protocol. Don't even install an FTP server on your Linode! Just create a non-root user, give that user read-write access to the directory where your website is going to be stored, and select "SFTP" as FileZilla's "server type". That way, all your traffic goes through SSH, which is encrypted.

Hi mate, that's really helpful information.
I have read a lot of command lines similar to what you posted.
but I was confused, and need some confirmation too.
and you did it for me.
thanks a lot.