In this chapter, we have come to terms with the three open source technologies that provide Proxmox VE's foundational features: containerization and virtualization with LXC, KVM, and QEMU.

Along the way, we've come to understand that containers, while being a type of virtualization, have characteristics that distinguish them from virtual machines.

These differences will be crucial as we determine which technology to rely on for a virtual server solution with Proxmox VE.

The next chapter will guide you through the installation and configuration of your first Proxmox VE server. It will thus introduce Proxmox VE hardware specifications and installation methods. Finally, it will provide a thorough walkthrough of the Proxmox Installer.

Let's move forward and prepare our first PVE instance, which we will use to host both containers and virtual machines.