Download the latest stable version of Debian.
Install it is a basic "standard system" with no additional packages.
netinstall greatly speeds up process.
Once at the command line run the following commands as root.
Setup Apache2, enabled mod_rewrite, and change the php memory to 128M.
Feel free to change memory limit...64,256,etc.
If asked to setup a root password for MySQL, do this and document it.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
aptitude install libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server php5-mysql
a2enmod rewrite
cp /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini.bak
sed 's/memory_limit = 16M/memory_limit = 64M/g' /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini.bak > /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
/etc/init.d/apache2 reload
