Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. Is it managed or not VPS ? If its managed just tell support to install LAMP CentOS or Debian and set up your IPB installation. On other hand, if it's not managed I certainly wouldn't recommend you non-panel way, if you can for newbies best bet is CPanel if not free solution is Virtualmin/Webmin , its enough just to install Virtualmin it will install Webmin, I would recommend you CentOS 7.1 (you get newer php version on 7.1 then on 6.6). Before install panel, just be sure to set up hostname. How to set up hostname on CentOS 7.1 first this then this , run "yum update" , how to install virtualmin/webmin here , then watch on youtube how to set up your Virtualmin properly (that you need to find yourself there is several videos around). Goodluck !