How to correctly set up a VPS?

Question

PHP

I decided to move from Russian VPS to the vaunted digitalocean, and since the opportunity arose, I want to set everything up in a human way.
So, a few questions tormenting me:
1) CentOS, Debian or Ubuntu? I worked only with CentOS, in fact, I'm leaning towards it.
2) Nginx + apache or nginx + php-fpm? The sites are mainly on Yii, the traffic is small (perhaps even in nginx as a frontend there is no objective sense now), but I want to do everything in an adult way with the possibility of future growth.
3) Considering that no one will use the VPS except me and 5-10 own domains will hang on it, what is the best way to work with them? Each domain has its own user or one for all? What is the best folder structure to use and where to store them? I used to do something like this:

/home
  /user1
    /domain1.ru
      /logs
      /www
    /domain2.ru
      ...

But, something tells me that /home is not the best place.
4) What do you think the list of required software looks like? For me, this is a web server (apache, nginx, php-fpm or something else), php 5.4, mysql, phpmyadmin, iptables, vsftpd.
5) Install everything from the repositories or still collect from the sources? How hard is it, is it important, what will it affect and will I feel the difference?

Answer 1

VPS. What are the features of the work?
Read this.
Do not collect software from source codes, plant blunders. Yes, and then you will not update.