The Mystery of Hosting

Hi there. I'm really curious about hosting. I know that I have the option to purchase outside hosting for my MUD, but I'm more curious about the possibilities of having my own server.

How practical is it for the typical guy to own and run a server for any game, be it MUD or non-MUD? Would my standard in-home broadband access be enough to run a MUD or, let's say, a first-person shooter multiplayer game, or would I need to find a non-home access point for my server to work?

How do you folks go about hosting your own MUDs?

I've thought about hosting myself before. I have an extra computer that has RedHat on it that I could host it on. But my final decision was no. I don't know enough about linux. Sure, I know enough to do it, but not enough to resolve problems. For example, take this recent problem:
http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpost.php?bbsubject_id=6189&page=999999

I would have had no idea what was going on. Luckily I have a host that does.

So you pay an outside host? How much do you pay, might I ask?

Currently, $5/month at arthmoor.com; but when my MUD goes into beta, I'll probably go up to the next package.

Not bad at all. :)

There is a link on this site to a list of external hosts:


http://www.moosh.net/mush/hosts.shtml


A quick browse would seem to indicate that $US20 upwards per month is the going rate for MUD hosting.

There is another thread about this topic, posted recently. I would ask around about which MUD admins are actually happy with their providers. Saving $5 a month might not be a big saving if your players are unhappy with the lag, or they do not respond to emails about problems.