"So I've got my server set up with LAMP..."

When you configured Apache, what did you declare as your root directory?

"I've placed my own index.html in var/www/..."

Make sure /var/www/ is defined as your web server's root directory. Also make sure there's only 1 index.html file in that directory.

I used the LAMP server image that you offer so I didn't configure it myself. Is there an easy way to change the root directory? And yes, I deleted the index.html which was already in var/www before I added mine.

Thanks,

- W

Did you restart Apache, afterwards? If not, execute:

sudo service apache2 restart

* I don't work for DigitalOcean.

It could be cached in your browser—try clearing your browser's cache or doing a full reload (ctrl-shift-r).

I followed these steps, taken from James Tansley, on this post https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-wordpress-on-ubuntu-12-04

1. Go to /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/ directory. To do this, type "cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/" without the quotes.
2. Open the dir.conf file so you can edit it. To do this, type "sudo nano dir.conf" without the quotes.
3. You will see a line of index files (index.html, index.php, index.cgi, etc) under the DirectoryIndex setting. Add index.php as the first item in the list. Doing so will tell Apache to first look for and load an index.php file before looking for the other index file extensions.
4. Press Ctrl+X to save your changes and then press Enter to exit the editor.
5. Restart Apache by typing "sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart" without the quotes.