php

As a result of injury my leg I was in a way forced to stay home. Spending long hours at home doing nothing does get boring, though I doubt many teenagers would admit it.
Never the less I decided to do something useful with my suddenly free time. Having several php, apache, etc type books at home I scrounged around and found one of the books.
After probably half an hour reading and another half hour following each of the tutorial steps I was aghast to discover that I needed PHP installed upon MY computer to view the final product...
My only problem is that all the tutorials that I follow to install php ends up with total disastor. They all fail at the same point of changing some document, which at the current moment I cannot remember the name of, but all the same it is important.
So until i have figured out how to install php onto my computer i am unable to do any further out of my tutorial books that involve php, etc.