So, I found out from submitting a support ticket the other day that Bluehost does not allow LaTeX to be installed on their servers. I’ve no idea why. This may be enough to cause me to start looking for a new webhost again and run a server switch near the time when my annual contract expires. And it’s not just the inability to run LaTeX that’s fueling this; it’s a number of other server limitations I keep running into. For instance, I would really like to set up an openID server for those sites I comment on periodically (like LiveJournal blogs) that allow openID authentication. I’d also like to play around with Habari (still in development), but I can’t seem to get it to install on my server.
So, I’m going to start doing a little research and querying to see if I can find a decent and affordable host that lets me do all these things. Shared hosting is most desirable at this point, since paying the exorbitant monthly fees for a Virtual Private Server is well beyond my means. Trouble is, I’m not sure it’s possible to do everything I want to do on a shared server.
For LaTeX, I need a server that has tetex-extra and dvipng installed, as well as imagemagick. For Habari, I need a PHP5 installation that actually functions like PHP5, instead of being a limited version. And I know something else is needed for openID that I don’t currently have, but I haven’t yet been able to pin down what.
I’m open to suggestions from the community, as well. Anything that will make my research a little easier is most welcome.
4 Comments
A friend of mine just switched to TigerTech (http://www.tigertech.net/). She’s new in the relationship, so no longterm updates yet, but she says the tech support is sensational. Their site interface is very lowtech, and she says the user interface is, too, but it does what she needs it to do. Not sure if it will do what you need, but they may be worth checking into.
Thanks for the tip, Jean. I’ll check them out. And lowtech doesn’t bother me – I mean I still do raw FTP and I’m learning how to use shell access, which isn’t actually all that “low-tech,” it just looks like it from the UI. :)
Low-tech probably wasn’t the right word, but you see what I mean about the UI.
Jean, they do, at least, support Subversion, which I’ve been interested in using. I think I’m going to explore this company a little more and ask some questions to see if they support some of the other things I want. Thanks for pointing me at them. They show promise!