A couple years ago LEA created a debian install script that helped to setup a web server while removing most of the unneeded bloat.
However, the script was missing a firewall (like IPTables), used php-cgi instead of php-fpm and generally lacked some other features. Later that year, people started forking the project and adding new features and improvements.
There are two main branches at this point, sk33lz and mine. Both serve to handle server setup for you making it much easier to get going with your new VPS.
For example, here is the full process I use to setup a new VPS with my lowendscript.
# After login as root...
# Create a new user
adduser demo
# Add demo to the sudo group
usermod -a -G sudo demo
# Check that he does
groups demo
# (from your PC) Copy your ssh-key to the server
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub demo@192.1.1.1
# Install git so we can install our server
apt-get install git
# Download the script
git clone git://github.com/Xeoncross/lowendscript.git /root/git/
# Setup locals
dpkg-reconfigure locales
# Run it
cd /root/git
./setup-debian.sh dotdeb
./setup-debian.sh system
./setup-debian.sh dropbear 22
./setup-debian.sh iptables 22
./setup-debian.sh nginx
./setup-debian.sh php
./setup-debian.sh mysql
# Now create a site
./setup-debian.sh site example.com
After you have finished this you will have PHP, Nginx, MySQL (with InnoDB disabled), IPtables, dropbear (SSH), all setup, configured, and working. You can also create new sites and matching MySQL accounts quickly.
./setup-debian.sh site othersite.com
./setup-debian.sh mysqluser othersite.com
Those two commands will create the directories in /var/www/, nginx configs, test page, and mysql user so you can get back to developing.