I'm interested to start using a dedicated server for my websites but feel I need to learn more about it. Can someone point me in the right direction to how I can learn more about how to setup a dedicated server with for example Fedora, Apache, Cpanel/WHM etc? Thanks in advance.
I also suggest this. That way, they will build it and install it for you. Meanwhile you can still learn by doing your own thing, and when you are unsure about doing something, you ask them to do it for you. I also found that a good server managing team, will tell you what they have done in details, so you will also learn from them.
Well yes that's a good idea but still I'd like to learn about it. Does anyone know any good books or something that cover the subject as a whole?
You will not need to set up a Dedicated yourself. You just need to make sure about your requirements and rest the hosting provider will set things for you.
They will setup the dedicated server for you. The easiest way (more expensive) is to have this server managed. If you manage it yourself you will need to keep up with some backend management of the server periodically.
If your "renting" a dedicated server, i would imagine everything would be already setup, if your looking for good documentation of cPanel/WHM Apache/IIS just google search each term, you'll see alot of excellent resources.
If you totally new to web Apache, cpanel/whm then i will suggest you to go through few tutorials and articles to get started, once you get soem confidence then you can try them at your server or can post your queries at DP so that that our DP tech guys will help you better So initially i will suggest you to have an managed dedicated hosting and get help of your host to manage your server while you do R&D on your server.