Because my console skilz have declined drastically? :(
'lot of resources' isn't that big of a concern, it's not something that I plan on doing all the time, of course.
It's not like I'm planning on setting up a website that will be visited by more than a dozen people a month, on average.
Dude, forcing yourself to use ssh will make you LEARN the console skillz. Necessity is the mother of all invention.
yum install httpd php php-gd php-mysql mysql mysql-dev bzip2 gzip unzip curl gcc gcc-c++ make perl perl-DBD-MySql wget groff ncurses python python-devel
Done. Just hunt up some guides for configuring Apache and MySQL. Technically PHP too, but it's relatively fine out of the box. MySQL comes with a very handy config script you should definitely run. A quick google search should give you the location. You now have a LAMP server, toss on an email deamon and you can handle 90% of anything you're likely to do.
(change to apt-get for ubuntu)
Personally, I like CentOS for my servers. Run whatever you're comfy with. But ubuntu is mostly geared towards desktops (think they have a specific server distro or install?). CentOS is more geared towards servers. I mean, mofo hardcore enterprise servers. Stability ueber alles.
I recommend QMail Toaster for your email app, some very nice install scripts and it's a lot more secure out of the box than sendmail.
