The backend

So I have a lot of time on my hand and want to create a web application with a mobile app. Im completely fine on the mobile app side with experience in Java and Android. Feed me some JSON and I can make the app do what I want. I also understand HTML, CSS, and know my way around Photoshop just fine. I have some knowledge of mySQL and JS but Im picking them up just fine.

However I'm completely lost on the server part and I'm not even sure where to get started. I would like to use Python for the backend and JSON for the API but other than that I really don't know what I should do. I only have extremely limited experience using JSP in one course that was just meant to be a very shallow overview of the process. Everything on the server was already setup for us and we were basically just writing Java to display what we wanted. Any tips would be great. Recommendations on what version of Linux to install, simple tutorials and information on the server side. Anything would be great.

>>10
By ``web server'' I assume you mean ``Apache setup'' since there are many web servers (Mongrel, Thin, SimpleHTTPServer) that can be set up using five-line scripts in ~/bin and invoked at a moment's notice without worrying about logs or configuration. But even if you do need Apache for CGI, there is a proliferation of halfway usable VM provisioning software for exactly this purpose. For example, you hardly need to know the first thing about Apache to set up a Vagrant instance with your project directory as a shared mount point. You can edit, refresh, and see your changes immediately, and never need to touch FTP or SSH until it's time to deploy.