I have a bee in my bonnet.

I plan to learn enough about Linode and LAMP and Drupal and Git and sysadmin etc. to produce at least a few sites. But every now and then I read something that has no background explanation and my brain freezes.

I don't get the domain name thing. There is a requirement to put a domain name here and there when setting up a Linode account, but nowhere is there an explanation of why. Do I need a domain to replace www.example.com with? Why or why not?

My guess is that this is common knowledge among anyone qualified to consider signing up for a VPS, and I don't qualify, but I want to play anyway. Do you all have a "PRIMARY DOMAIN NAME" that you own and use and identify yourself with, or does the Linode need it to be identified with, and to whom or to what? Please help.

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Daniel

Yes - you need a domain*.

No - you can't have www.example.com

Search the forum, there has been a few threads about which Domain Registrar to use (they say "buy" a domain name - but you're basically renting it - don't pay your rent and you lose your domain name).

Once you "have" a domain name, then you can point it to Linodes Name Servers and control the DNS for that domain there (or you can use which ever name server service you like).

*Technically you could use just the IP, but if you're going for practical study of how all this "stuff" works, best get a real domain (you're looking at $9/year - so it's hardly a wallet buster).

You really don't need a domain name to use the linode, but vonskippy is right. Setting up DNS and configuring your services to work correctly with your domain is a big part of what you will want to be learning if you plan to do anything "real".

If you are just playing around you can get a free name here:
http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

If you want to save money, you can always use a static DNS entry from somebody like dyndns.org, since they're free. It'll be a subdomain, though.