Need help with hosting an IRC bot?

Well from my last thread

http://www.smokinelite.com/t72474-where-can-i-host-an-irc-bot-for-free-or-very-good-price-java-bot

I found a host which is ChicagoVPS
http://www.chicagovps.net/openvz.html
Now I have three questions regarding purchasing a VPS.
Q1: Does the location of the VPS matter? They have 3 different locations which are

Chicago, IL
Buffalo, NY
Los Angeles, CA

Does the choice of city matter much or not? when deciding between these three cities

Q2: What does Configure Server and Configurable options mean here?


Q3: Which Operating system should I use to host a Java coded IRC bot?




As you can tell I know very little about VPS so I would really appreciate any type of response before I decide on which VPS settings to purchase

1) It doesn't really matter where you host, because it's an IRC bot. Your ping won't differ that much. Running something more heavy, like Minecraft, would more heavily depend on where you're located, due to the transfer of lots of data.

2) I think that's for people who have a pre-paid domain name, but I'm not 100% sure.

3) Pretty much all of them, if not all of them, are Linux based OS's. I think for the most part, it's up to you to decide which one you like. Personally, I don't feel like there's much of a difference between any of them. Ubuntu is the one that I like the best, though.

Side note: You have to check the TOS of your VPS choice, because many of them won't allow IRC bot hosting in any form. You should also either send an email or click "Live Chat" if they have that available.

evilMonkey wrote:
3) Pretty much all of them, if not all of them, are Linux based OS's. I think for the most part, it's up to you to decide which one you like. Personally, I don't feel like there's much of a difference between any of them. Ubuntu is the one that I like the best, though.

Could you provide more info on this to help me out ? As I know pretty much nothing about these operating systems or where to find more basic info on them. So my computer is windows 7 does that mean I will have to change it to Linux to be able to select one of those Operating Systems? And how would I go on running it? Would it be the same as in windows 7 double click and go ?

Also I emailed them and they said it should be fine with hosting the IRC bot just as long as there is no DDOS or anything like that.

Daxaal wrote:

evilMonkey wrote:
3) Pretty much all of them, if not all of them, are Linux based OS's. I think for the most part, it's up to you to decide which one you like. Personally, I don't feel like there's much of a difference between any of them. Ubuntu is the one that I like the best, though.

Could you provide more info on this to help me out ? As I know pretty much nothing about these operating systems or where to find more basic info on them. So my computer is windows 7 does that mean I will have to change it to Linux to be able to select one of those Operating Systems? And how would I go on running it? Would it be the same as in windows 7 double click and go ?

Also I emailed them and they said it should be fine with hosting the IRC bot just as long as there is no DDOS or anything like that.

Ubuntu will be the easiest for you to operate and navigate though if you've never used a Linux based OS. You should be able to find answers to all your Ubuntu related questions at http://ubuntuforums.org/

You won't need to install the OS on your computer (Think of it like using Team Viewer, you're connecting to someone's else's computer who happens to be running Ubuntu).

I'm not sure about running your script, how does it work? Does it screen scrape qwebirc, does it rely on a client, does it run in the terminal? If it runs through the terminal you should be fine. If not, make sure the VPS allows you to install whatever programs you need and make sure there are stable linux versions (or try running them with WINE).

Good Luck


P.S. If the script isn't too complex (or private) I'd be more than willing to recode it in MSL and run from my computer 24/7 (Downtime would be very rare)