Artisan is a command line tool, it's role is explained in the docs.
Nginx is a webserver (apache is too, see their respective websites).
Homestead is a preconfigured virtual machine (check the docs).
Vagrant is an automation tool for virtual machines (see website).
Composer is a dependency management tool (with precise docs !).
It's a lot if you take it all at once but you don't need to, take your time.
So if i have Apache then I don't need to do anything with Nginx. right?
Homestead and Vagrant are Virtual machine way. so that is also out of course for me. Because i have lampp installed, is that right?
Correct. If you have LAMP and Composer, you have everything you need.
Composer is similar to aptitude/yum/gem/pip, but for PHP. So, composer installs PHP packages and keeps them up to date.
Like Meroje said, artisan is a command line tool that helps you manage/build your laravel app. Typing php artisan will show you all the available commands. And php artisan --help command will show you help for that command.
So, using php artisan serv is an easy way to serve your application for dev if you don't have Apache configured.
In short, you're on the right track.
Sign in to participate in this thread!
Laravel
Laravel News
Laracasts
Laravel Podcast