Best OS to use to make a virtual local server?

[Asbestos]

Hi all,

I am a VBox newbie and a Unix newbie, so please forgive my question.

I have an online application that works with a PHP server. My boss is going to be running a demo of the software, but he won't have internet access. He wants to be able to run a local version of the software. Since he didn't want to set up PHP and all that on his own machine, he wanted a virtual machine that he could run locally as a server. Both me and my boss use Mac OS X Leopard.

I assume that I'll be able to figure out from the manual how to do this with VBox, but this is an opinion question:

What OS should I install on the virtual machine? I've never set up a server before. I've used Ubuntu a little bit on my own machine before, but I figure that a simple server doesn't need a GUI. Should I set up Debian? Something else?

Thanks for any thoughts!

[Perryg]

Ubuntu has a server version. Shoot any Linux desktop will work if you want to have a desktop GUI.
If you are used to Ubuntu then go with that. Otherwise my preference in Debian. If you do Debian do a net install and pick the features you need and leave the rest off.

[avih]

Ubuntu server is probably a system for which you can get much help since it's relatively common, and you'll probably have to install and configure it yourself - not too hard but requires some effort.

Another solution which would probably require less effort is a "Virtual appliance". It's a disk image of a pre-configured/installed system, usually a server (each "appliance" for a specific need, e.g. wordpress server, office server, mail server, Linux/Apachy/PHP/MySql ("LAMP") server, etc.), designed to be deployed mostly as a virtual machine, and which VirtualBox (or VMware etc.) can run. You can find many good free ones here or here.