When we first began with this lesson, we mentioned the various ways to set up a local development environment. Depending on the size of your organization or team, having a repeatable and configured method for starting each Drupal project cuts down on having to manually install tools and dependencies. A VM also eliminates issues with something working locally, but not working on a remote server.
Virtualizing an environment
Using Drupal VM as a web starter
Depending on your skill level, it may make sense to create your own web starter by packaging and configuring Vagrant, VirtualBox, PHP, MySQL, and the list goes on. However, if some of those terms seem foreign to you, I would recommend the well-documented and easy-to-use Drupal VM (http://www.drupalvm.com):
Drupal VM is a virtual machine for local Drupal development, built with Vagrant and Ansible, that can be installed and run on Mac, Windows, or Linux. This package allows a consistent development experience with a robust set of tools already installed, including Composer, Drush, and Drupal Console.
Drupal VM was created and is maintained by Jeff Geerling. It is by far the best option for working with a Drupal-based web project and, while the steps involved to install it are clearly spelled out in the documentation, I would recommend starting with the Quick Start Guide available at https://github.com/geerlingguy/drupal-vm#quick-start-guide.
It is worth taking the time to learn how to work with a virtualized environment that can be configured and customized to work with any requirements your next Drupal project may have.
If at any point you experience any issues, the Drupal VM repository issue queue (https://github.com/geerlingguy/drupal-vm/issues)--is available to post questions for assistance.
