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If you are talking about a headless machine and not your own day to day use workstation then hosting should start with removing as much as possible. In terms of performance, stability and security, the smaller the footprint the less maintenance is required and the smaller the attack surface will initially be. And one of the first things to go should be the whole X11 / Xorg stack, compilers and any other group of applications that have no place on a server. In essence the best (efficient, controlled) way would be to start with just the base OS and only add the necessary web server, database and interpreter software and their dependencies. Then harden the machine and web stack properly before exposing it.
Some people use a web-based GUI (I mean management panels like webmin, phpmyadmin etc, etc) but often they mistake it for a valid substitute for knowledge of and practical hands-on experience with the base components which in my opinion systems administration requires first and foremost. One way could be to install XAMPP, or use one of the complete Bitnami stacks (they've got a lot like Joomla, Wordpress, PHPBB), on a restricted access development workstation, tweak and test as you like (make backups) and then ship the necessary configuration to your "production" machine. This way you get to build and break stuff in a safe environment, keeping your "production" machine free of mistakes that can be easily avoided.
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trying to host web site
