The boring part:
Log in to Rackspace and spin a new server with Centos 5.5 and most basic settings.
We will be doing this with root so this setup will be for testing only and no production.
The fun part:
$ yum install httpd php php-mysql mysql-server unzip nano php-xml php-gd
(NOTE: php-xml and php-gd are required by Drupal dom/gd respectively)
$ service httpd start
$ service mysqld start
$ msyql
> create database drupal
> quit()
$ cd /var/www/html
$ wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-7.2.zip
$ unzip drupal-7.2.zip
$ mv drupal-7.2/* .
$ rm -rf drupal-7.2
$ mkdir files
$ chmod 777 files
$ cp default.settings.php settings.php
open the IP address on your browser and follow the installation instructions
Nice write up. for the step on mkdir files I think you mean default/files as making a drupal/files dir wouldn’t be where you put your files by default, but I believe in 7.2 and now 7.10 currently the folder is already there for you, but you do have to still chmod it to 777 cause it’s 775 by default.