I feel a major sense of déjà vu because I have gone down this road before. In the past I have done the whole MAMP setup so I could have my local server for development purposes. I no longer had that on my laptop so I was starting fresh.
As I started the Tuts+ tutorial by Tom McFarlin, he recommended MAMP (and WAMP and XAMPP). I decided to go a different route and try Desktop Server. I had heard good things about it, plus I’d previously met Marc Benzakein through the WP After Dark hangout (now defunct) and then saw him at WordCamp Miami (my first ever!).
So I hopped over, downloaded the free version (which is fine to start) and got to installing. The installation process was super easy. The only hitch I had was a minor browser issue, but once I got it sorted, I was able to run my WordPress installation and I was good to go. All told, it took me about 5 minutes in total to get set up.
Have to say I loved this. No fiddling with all the bits and pieces. And setting up a new WordPress installation for another project is dead simple (click-click-click). I’ll play with this some more but I may just end up buying the premium licence before too long (I’m limited to 3 local sites).
I thought about writing up a detailed step-by-step tutorial but it’s just so easy. Just follow the Getting Started documentation if you really need hand-holding through it.
Onwards through the tutorial now.