I use Vagrant (http://vagrantup.com/ http://vagrantup.com/) for working locally. I create a project folder and use whatever Linux distro, web server, framework,

I use Vagrant (http://vagrantup.com/ http://vagrantup.com/) for working locally. I create a project folder and use whatever Linux distro, web server, framework, etc. the project calls for. And it's got all kinds of devops goodness by integrating with Chef and Puppet so you can create complex configurations easily.