I am strictly a PHP/MySQL developer and was wondering if there's a very easy to use distribution with a desktop that would give me everything I need to develop.

I know enough to do my development once things are up and running, but last time I tried to set up a linux box for development I ended up spending 80% of my work time messing with linux and learning to install and configure everything and only about 20% of my time actually programming. Even as I learned it didn't seem to get much better as I had to keep things up to date and most of the GUI based tools I used seemed to be alpha quality.

Fact is I'm neither a linux hobbyist nor a sys admin but would prefer to develop on that environment because it is what the software is deployed on. Is there anything out there like this?

Ubuntu or Kubuntu perhaps. Should be easy enough, and shouldn't need too much sysadmin skills to start programming with..

Ubuntu provides a special Server installation cd, which installs LAMP if you wish; that way you should get what you need in (quoting them) 15-20 minutes or so. The external tools (editors for php code) you might need to install yourself if you're not comfortable with what comes along (text-editors like Kate, Kwrite on Kubuntu or Gedit on Ubuntu -- they do have syntax hilighting though), but adding software is just a piece of cake (point-and-click).

EDIT: Kubuntu is basically Ubuntu with KDE desktop (rather than Gnome, that Ubuntu uses). It's just the same which one you install, and it can be switched afterwards. I'd recommend installing Ubuntu Server, it shouldn't ask too difficult things during the install and should be working without too much config. ubuntulinux.org

Ubuntu server does not come with a gui so you have to install a desktop also. I installed UBUNTU using the alternative cd (tried the live cd but had problems). then installed XXAMP. I wanted a development machine set up with lamp and that worked for me.

Thanks guys. I have already setup a few ubuntu machines in VMWare and everything has worked beautifully so far. Got a desktop, a subversion server, and a few lamp servers all set up for development. great