For the past 6 or 8 months I've been working a lot with .NET. I've learned about web services (though I'm no expert) and recently I've developed a strong interest in web servers and I really want to set up my own. I have an old desktop computer with Windows Server 2008 running, but I live in a dorm and don't have a static IP. I know there are solutions for that, but I want to better understand what it is I am doing first. What I would like to set up is a multi-purpose server that I can use to host websites/android-apps.
I've heard that LAMP servers are more customizable(hence, usually more efficient) than Windows/IIS servers. Is this true? Since Apache is so ubiquitous, I really would like to learn more about how it works, and really learn how to use it. The only thing that makes me nervous about taking the LAMP route is the command-line(I'm 19 and was raised on GUIs). I've worked with the unix command-line before, and I'm comfortable with basic commands/filesystem navigation, but configuring something like a web server from a command-line makes me go all deer-in-headlightsy. I can get free copies of almost any piece of Microsoft software(gotta love being a student), but I don't want to sacrifice my understanding of my web server solely in exchange for a GUI.
Any suggestions on what route to take? My concern with going Windows is that I would never really understand web servers because everything would always be encapsulated and simplified for me. I also want to know what goes into an awesome and efficient server. Any suggestions/books/resource recommendations?