I am having several tweeking head-heaks with vbulletin under Windows IIS. So far vbulletin was run under the same windows server as the rest of the website but it is time to split in 2 servers anyway.

I am thinking to move it all to a new Linux dedicated server. What is the best for vbulletin ? My intention is to add the new official add-ons for BLOG and social networking tools and hopefully several hacks and so on.

What is the best machine ?
Linux CentOS
Linux: Red Hat Fedora Core 6
I never used Linux and I have no idea of what I should ask. What about Apache ?

I am interested in the forum running smoothly and forum / features expandability.

Any more suggestion?

Paolo
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Linux is indeed the better os for web serving since it is more stable without the need of of several hundred ptches a week to keep it safe.

Fr the os... depends what your goal is
Fedora is the free developpers version of redhat but is ver changing with life cycles pretty short. Nice if you want to be on the edge but not the best for web serving
centos is today according me the better wy to go in redhat alike world. It's main goal is to follow slowly to improve stability and security. I ran several of those with hardly any glitches for over 2 years now.

Apache is just a package to serve webpages. It runs on almost any platform today. Still 2 worlds, the 1.3 family and the 2.0 faily. Both are good. Just that you have the hard core fans of stability for the 1.3 family (still supported) and those wanting to go ahead with newer 2.0 that is stable at this time.

If you never used Linux, it'll be hard to manage a server alone. You better get the help from someone. Linux isn't complex but as ususal, if you have no clue where to begin ... you're stuck

I can recommend to go for a cpanel driven linux server since cpanel has a very complete admin part, a good community for help (read forum). It isn't free but it is always offering the best.
And if you need some advice I'll be glad to help you out.

And for the sice of server if you really need one for you ... maybe already tell what is the size of your forum, traffic etc... except very large forums, you mostly are well fitted on a shared server.

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Domains hosting, server rent... -- Distant-Help link directory

Thanks a lot for the extensive answer to my question.
Right now my forum does not have much traffic ( yesterday 1500 page views - only 100 visitors probably) - However my main site has quite a bit of traffic and 1 server resources are almost used up. Ideally I would like to build a strong community - Since my site is dedicated to Italophiles I might be able to achieve my goal if I build the right infrastructure. Ideally a forum that looks like this one is ideal. I would replace howver the arcade section with an image and media section. I am also waiting for whatever vbulletin will come up for community and blog tools. If you are available for consulting please email me and I will email a couple of sites I like.
Paolo
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