I've watched someone slowly learning sysadmin recently, and I think what would be really helpful is an easy way to understand what is needed, and why, for a bas

I've watched someone slowly learning sysadmin recently, and I think what would be really helpful is an easy way to understand what is needed, and why, for a basic LAMP server, with FTP and SSH for access, and iptables security basics. He started with installing a LAMP package and I see that it's scary for someone to start using the command line, modifying apache confs etc, when you have no idea what you are going to break where.