> XAMPP did not work out of the box with me on Windows (skill issue on my part, I know), so my preferred setup was to run a Ubuntu Server VM (LAMP stack) and then develop whatever I had on a Windows IDE.
Why wouldn't you have just spent 5 minutes to get XAMPP working?
It's really a skill issue on my part.
LAMP stack worked for me perfectly on Linux out of the box, whether Ubuntu Server or any RHEL-based distro (even with SELinux enabled!).
I spent some solid 8+ hours on that, saw it uneconomical and went the VM way.