I'll try keep this short (it's hard to do lol).
I need to host the invision powerboard script with ipb nexus (
http://www.invisionpower.com ). This requires installation of Zend optimiser or iOncube.
I'm currently with mediatemple and using their dedicated virtual server. It's far to expensive and cluttered when you want to administrate this yourself and customise to your liking. Opting for their (ve) package might be useful for some but they offer no UK based servers and is still rather expensive.
So my basic requirements are that I can play around with the server and install packages to my liking and that I can get a decent price whilst maintaining a level of support mediatemple are advised not to provide on my current plan. So is linode for me?