The following prepares an Ubuntu 12.04 box for running Magento. Inspired by David T Sadler's helpful tutorial found here: http://davidtsadler.com/archives/2012/06/03/how-to-install-magento-on-ubuntu/

install-magento.sh

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo apt-get install php5 php5-curl php5-gd php5-mcrypt php5-mysql -y
sudo apt-get install mysql-server -y
sudo bash -c "cat >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/magento-default <<EOF
<VirtualHost *:80>

  DocumentRoot /var/www/magento

  LogLevel warn
  ErrorLog  ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/magento-error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/magento-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>
EOF"

mysql -uroot -p 
#CREATE DATABASE magento;
#INSERT INTO mysql.user (User,Host,Password) VALUES('magento','localhost',PASSWORD('magento'));
#FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
#GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON magento.* TO magento@localhost;
#FLUSH PRIVILEGES;