Deploying a web server fast-OS/Distro/Tools?

I'm interested in your opinion on this topic. Let's say you want a web server up for development or testing ASAP.

Here are some requirements, but feel free to discuss solutions that don't address all of them.

- Fast to deploy, without requiring to read a manual that is TL;DR
- As little configuration files to edit as possible, and all the configuration files contain commented guidelines and examples. Automation of the menial work would be very appreciable.
- Can be used for standard configurations (Apache+Mysql+Php) but also for less common ones (LightHttpd+FastCGI+Ruby+PostgreSql)
- FTP, SSH and SFTP
- Steps to take are not likely to change much in the next few years.
- Bonus requirement: secure and performant enough to be actually usable for production too.

Windows 2003 (nt5,2)?
- check
- check
- somewhat
- not sure
- check
- check

You can run most this shit on a w32 box without reading a whole lot.. You can use apache and lighthttpd as webserver if you please and iis/6.0(only NT5,2) is actually pretty nice for ftp. Never tried any of the SSH and ruby stuff. Don't take this one too seriously tho, while w32 is easy to config it's not as easy to config correctly without reading a whole lot onto it.. For example the mysql for w32 sucks balls pretty much. Also most unix systems require quite a bit of configing with files and reading loads of manuals too. You might want to give a try FreeBSD or another BSD though, they are a very good platform for server. And also all linux distros are able to act as server to variable extent..

Basically anything you choose you're probably gonna have to scrap the first requirement alltogether cuz manuals is where most info is in.
It's up to personal experience in the end, you gotta try many possibilities and stick with the best compromise you find for urself.

or so I say...