LAMP: Linux, Apache2, MySQL (MariaDB) and PHP
LAMP is what you need to build your first WordPress server. Your first choice will be your flavor of Linux. The menu at the top of the web site contains notes from each of the LAMP components.
My Hardware
I bought a refurbished HP DL360e Gen8 server. It contains dual Intel 6 core Xeon processors, 80GB of RAM, and a 4 x 3 TB SAS RAID 10 array (5.5 TB). I installed 6 x Gigabit NIC adapters. I bought VMWare 6 Essentials Kit for the hypervisor. I can install many virtual servers on it. I have one Worpress server, Desktop file server, Dropbox server, syslog server, and several servers.
phpMyAdmin
I install phpMyAdmin to create the databases. I do everything old school.
https://www.phpmyadmin.net/downloads/
My configurations for the web server are in depth. I custom configure all of the LAMP components for best security. Only thing this site is missing is HSTS formal application. I don’t see a reason for it right now. The rest of my web sites are fully HSTS compliant.