LAMP

Posted under » System Admin

For server software, I recommend LAMP. LAMP consists of

Linux - the operating system

Apache - the web server

MySQL - the database

Php - the programming language

For instructions on installation, read here. For LAMP security

If installation is a chore for you, you might want to try XAMPP. It runs on Windows too.

Other recommendations
For desktop software, I mainly use Ubuntu. However, I also concurrently use Windows (Win7, XP, Server) and Mac OSX. None is perfect so I use them all. Btw... in my humble opinion, Firefox is the best browser and it works well in all operating systems.

I don't recommend

Coldfusion. I used to admire them for simplicity. However, version 9 does not work well with mySQL community version.
MS Internet Explorer. It sux
MS Silverlight. It sux