Install magento on Ubuntu

1. Download The latest version of magenta on: http://www.magentocommerce.com/
2. Install zend: sudo apt-get install zend-framework
3. Decompress the tar.gz file from magento you downloaded and copy it on /var/www/data
4. Change the owner of the magento folder: sudo chown -R www-data /var/www/data
5. Install addiditional libraries needed by magento: sudo apt-get install php5-gd php5-curl php5-mcrypt php5-mysql
6. Restart apache to make sure the changes are applied: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
7. Magento should be properly installed: go on http://127.0.0.1/magento and fill the wizard

You should arrive to a page asking for mysql credentials. if you did not install them already, follow these steps:

1. sudo apt-get install mysql-server
2. Follow the instructions and set the root password to the database
3. Run mysql script: mysql --user=root --password=XXXX where XXXX is the password you specified in previous step
4. Create the magento schema: create schema magento;
5. Exit the script: exit;

Now, you can finish the configuration steps. Do not forget to set the name you specified before in the schema.

Note: This is by no mean a production environment installation. It is just a technique to have the server up and running.