HTTP Server
A simple and fast HTTP Server for pure HTML/CSS/JavaScript development can be set up with Python: You can access the files in the current directory with:http://<ServerName>:8000/
This simple HTTP server can be used to test your static webpages. A more advanced server is needed, if you have to test a server-dynamic webpage (e.g. a webpage using PHP or SQL database). The de facto standard webserver is "Apache":
http://httpd.apache.org/
This program is often combined with a script language (e.g. PHP, Python or Perl) and a database (e.g. MySQL, MariaDB, etc.). If everything is installed on linux, it is often called LAMP (Linux,Apache,MySQL,P{HP,ython,erl):
http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/LAMP
You can install this package in a virtual machine. It is also possible to set up your own production system for webpages. I do not recommend that for a private environment, because it cause maintenance incessantly.