Hi guys, At the moment I am using XAMPP to test sites locally duing development. However I am also playing around with various Linux distros. I have a dedicated server with HeartInternet which is running CentOS. Obviously this doesn't have a GUI set up because it's hosted remotley. Is it possible to install my selected Linux distro (with GNOME GUI) using VMware am I able to boot VMware in Windows 7 and save files the Linux installation. Basically I want to have a virtual web server set up in debian, but i want this to be emulated using windows. Is this possible? Or do I have to try it when I get home? Alternativly, how are your guys testing servers set up?
I'm not sure if you can say most VPS hosts are ESX based, there are alot of other options out there. Being a hosting insider, I can say that, that is not an accurate statement. You might check out Virtual Box by SUN. It's free, runs well on Windows 7, and gets the job done!
You may want to look into a hosting automation panel like Plesk or WHM/cPanel. These run atop linux and provide easy configuration of web sites and domains. If you like to get your hands wet at the command line, then you can go that route as well. I am not sure how long you need a development system, but I use SoftLayer's Cloud services for various development purposes. They have hourly, yeah hourly, billing. Sometimes I just need to develop a package or run a test on the specific distro that we do not have in house. I use their hourly cloud services. The other day, I had to build a custom RPM for Red Hat 4 32bit. So I used their service to quickly provision a box, built what I needed, and then canceled the instance. Total costs $2.00. Check out their site Softlayer. (I cannot post links yet).