I decided I wanted get my own server so that I could run it completely; I've had shared hosting in the past but asking for my host if he could do something for me, because I didn't have access was getting old. Running your own server lets you do whatever you want.

If you want to run your own server entirely, you have three options.

First, you can build your own server. Unless you have that spare parts lying around, it may cost you a lot to make it. It's basically just a computer. You won't need to have a flashy graphics or sound card, really so if you are building your own server, don't bother getting those. There's nothing wrong with just running Apache from your own computer, but you'll have to have it on all the time and have a permanent internet connection. Your ISP might not like that you're using them as your route to the Internet though! I do know that Virgin Media don't mind you doing that.

I'm not using this option because I don't feel like managing the hardware myself. And my mum would get pissed when our 2Meg connection slowed to a crawl.

Another option is a dedicated server. Basically the same as above, but a company is looking after the hardware and they have a much faster internet connection than you'll have at home. Downside of this is that they cost around £60 a month. You get lots of hard drive space and it's really fast generally.

I didn't bothered with that because... well, mostly because I'm poor. Also because I've no idea how to manage a server. Getting something as professional as that would be silly, if I was just going to break it eventually.

So, the option I went with was a virtual server. Exactly the same as a dedicated server, except you don't get as much hard drive space or memory because it's shared with other people on the same server. Nonetheless, you have complete control over everything that happens in your "partition".

At the moment, I'm paying $10 a month (£5.14) for a server has a kinda low spec, from Redwood Virtual. It's okay for what I need it for; playing around and learning the ropes. I guess we'll see what happens if this blog ever starts getting traffic, (heaven forbid one of my articles get Dugg.)

The LVS came with Debian. I had the option of picking the distribution; Etch, Lenny, or Sid. At this point, I knew nothing about Debian, so I ran to Wikipedia to find out what they were on about. The Debian article told me that Sid was an unstable version, so I'm not entirely sure why Redwood would be offering it. Etch is the current and stable version of Debian, and Lenny is the next version that's going to be released, though it's still in an "experimental stage", which I guess means that it's in beta. I went with Etch in the end, since I know that's going to work as expected.