Either Fedora or Debian would be fine as a base. Its the Linux Web development tools which are the main issue.
Taken from http://www.linux.com/feature/48643
A survey of Linux Web development tools
Choice is a good thing, and Linux users have plenty of it when selecting a program for Web development. Users can choose from the basic no-frills text editors, to full-featured "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) programs. Here's a survey of the best programs I've used.
This is by no means an exhaustive overview of all Web development programs available for Linux. For example, since the original Mozilla Suite has largely been displaced by Firefox and Thunderbird, I've decided not to review Mozilla Composer (or Netscape Composer). I've also kept to programs that are mature, and available under free and open source software licenses.
This is also not an exhaustive overview of all features in each program. I've tried to highlight some of the most interesting features in each program. In particular, I've focused on HTML/XHTML editing and support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Let's start with a look at two general-purpose editors, Vim and Emacs, that offer some specific features for Web development.
Vim
Vim is one of the most popular text editors for Linux users, and it offers a number of useful features for editing HTML and other languages you might use for Web development.
One of the first features I look for in any editor is syntax highlighting. Vim supports syntax highlighting for HTML, PHP, Python, Perl, CSS, and many other languages. Vim uses syntax files for each markup or programming language, and if it doesn't have a syntax file for your favorite language (unlikely), it's possible to write your own.
Another useful feature in Vim is support for editing files on remote machines. Vim can edit files over FTP, Secure FTP (SFTP), SSH (scp), rsync, and other protocols. This may be a bit slower than editing a local file, but it's otherwise seamless.
Vim is also very extensible. It's not too difficult to add keymaps that insert frequently used tags, and to create scripts or macros to use with Vim. The Vim Web site has quite a few tips on using Vim more effectively, and scripts to extend its functionality.
One script I recommend is the closetag.vim script, which makes it easy to "close" the last tag used. For example, if you've put in a
tag, press Ctrl-_ to insert the tag. Another useful add-on for Vim is HTML.vim, which provides a set of mappings and menus for working with HTML.
If you're not familiar with Vim, it's not your best choice for doing Web development. If you have experience with Vim, spend a little time checking out Vim's advanced features that make Web development easy.
Emacs
Like Vim, Emacs enjoys a great deal of popularity amongst Linux users -- although usually not the same users. Emacs is particularly popular with users who've been working with Linux or other Unix-type systems for a long time. As with Vim, Emacs has all the features you'd expect in a world-class text editor that make working with text easy. However, if you're looking for WYSIWYG features, Emacs is not for you.
By itself, Emacs is pretty good for Web development. It supports syntax highlighting for a number of languages, and completion of tags and other standard language keywords so that you don't need to type out the entire HTML tag or keyword.
Emacs is also extensible, and there are a number of Emacs modes that make things even easier. The html-helper-mode, for example, provides shortcuts to insert HTML tags and entities, and even an entire HTML document "skeleton" with all the basic tags a document needs. The html-helper-mode also brings support for basic CSS.
The Transparent Remote (file) Access, Multiple Protocol (TRAMP) package makes it easy to edit files on remote servers with Emacs. TRAMP works over Remote Shell (RSH), SFTP, and SSH (scp).
Of course, the other benefit to Emacs is that you can do pretty much anything from the editor. Want to read email from Emacs? No problem. Want to chat in IRC using Emacs? You can do that too. This has little to do with Web development, but if you "live" in Emacs already, you probably want to do your Web development with it as well.
Emacs, like Vim, is fairly complex -- it's very powerful, but it will probably take novice users a while to master.
This article is carried over to a second page on the source link.
LUg.