If I’m using a Linux box as a development machine, I usually like to have Apache installed with userdir enabled, even if I’m not necessarily doing web-development, just in case I need to play with something webby/internety.

Enabling the userdir module on Unbuntu and its derivatives is usually something like:

sudo a2enmod userdir

If required, further tweaking of userdir configuration can be done by editing:

/etc/apache2/mods-enabled/userdir.conf

Then restart apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

After this, all manner of HTML-based experiments can be installed or inclubated in the relative safety and convenience of a user’s home directory at ~/public_html/, which should be accessible on http://localhost/~username/.

Just make sure all subdirectories in path to public_html have read and execute permissions.