[Ashur]

i never had the chance to setup Windows server successfully I only had the chance to setup Linux server but last one was on Redhat 7.3 so that was long time ago

Most common Linux servers nowadays are Debian based e.g. Ubuntu Server

CentOS has been really popular for many server setup and it does use RPM so it's family of RedHat

Out of linux you can try BSD like FreeBSD or openBSD,

I haven't tried any of the server distribution lately so can't recommend which one to try out first

but for now try the xampp on windows and mess with conf files and php.ini to learn bit more before you can try to setup a linux server

here is a wild guess but try Ubuntu server