How to set up PHP on Nginx with FastCGI and PHP-FPM

Setting up Nginx with PHP-FPM on Ubuntu is straightforward but has a common pitfall: installing the plain PHP package pulls in Apache, which conflicts with Nginx. This tutorial walks through the correct approach — using php-fpm, editing the Nginx config to enable FastCGI passthrough, validating the config, and confirming PHP is working via a phpinfo page.