Using Windows hosting, thinking of moving to Linux

[frozenwaste1]

Hi,

I'm currently using a Windows hosting package for upto 10 domains, at the moment, I have 2 sites running.

I now want to setup a couple of sites using Wordpress, reading around it appears that Linux is the better option for among other things, plugin compatability etc.

The couple of questions I have are:

1. If I contact my hosting provider to transfer me to their Linux package, will this affect my current sites? They work perfectly now, but on Linux wouldn't things run differently?

2. At the moment, I build my sites using Dreamweaver on a Windows PC, which I can fully test before uploading using IIS. How would I go about testing a site if I moved to Linux? What's the general concensus, should I install Linux/Apache on another PC or is that too much effort, should I just test by uploading to my host?

Thanks for your time!

Peter.

[mayest]

Several weeks ago I had a desire to use .htaccess, and couldn't do that with my Windows hosting plan. So, I switched (through the control panel) to Linux hosting. No problems at all.

My site, for now, is completely static html, so the switch was painless. As for a testing server, I really don't know, but I'd bet that you can find a free "virtual appliance" (Google it) that will work or at least be helpful.

[shigamoto]

1. If I contact my hosting provider to transfer me to their Linux package, will this affect my current sites? They work perfectly now, but on Linux wouldn't things run differently?

It might work differently, whenever you have databases and server-side scripting there are always risks when migrating. I don't know exactly how WordPress operates though.

2. At the moment, I build my sites using Dreamweaver on a Windows PC, which I can fully test before uploading using IIS. How would I go about testing a site if I moved to Linux? What's the general concensus, should I install Linux/Apache on another PC or is that too much effort, should I just test by uploading to my host?

It pays to have a local test-server which is almost an exact copy of your online website (except for the paths). If you run a smaller site you can always try uploading directly, but of course the risks are higher. If you only have one PC you can also install Apache and PHP on that machine and test them directly before uploading.

[aruns]

I use linux hosting & test my websites on a local WAMP server. I tried Server2go & lighty2go, both worked for me. Both are WAMP servers and work from a USB / CD drive / hard drive, making them very easy to use.
I found them on wikipedia, I'm sure you can find more such Wamp or Lamp servers.