3
Installing XOOPS is the least difficult part. Installing you're own webserver might be a hell of job indeed for people who don't have any experience in that field.
Next to XSAS another thing which you might consider usefull is XAMMP. It can be found here:
http://www.apachefriends.orgI use it for developing @ localhost but it's a complete package for both windows and linux. Install is just a click and everything is configured. (the not lite package also contains mod_perl, ftpserver, mailserver, etc.) New versions with up to date componments show up regularly.
I hope that might be usefull to you or whoever.