Hi Chris,
Do you configure a new droplet, right?
And do you have the ssh access to manage the VPS?
I know that are two questions instead a answer, but i need understand your trouble as well.

Hi,

The tutorial you are refer here is actually naming your computer rather here, that is your VPS or the IP address.

It has nothing to do with hosting environment.

You still need to install application based on your requirement to host your website or any other project.

For website, you need a web server, FTP, email, database and such. You may follow the article of LAMP deployment.

LAMP Ubuntu 14 -> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-ubuntu-14-04

LAMP on CentOS 66 -> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-centos-6

Digital Ocean also makes life simple with their one click image, where you can deploy WordPress or LAMP / LEMP

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/one-click-install-wordpress-on-ubuntu-14-04-with-digitalocean

So search the tutorial section for more.

I am also a newbie, moved from cPanel based web hosting (shared) to here, and I went ahead with a control panel as I felt that is easier way to migrate. I am not that good with linux system and configuration, so I left the configuration and back end to the control panel software to take care and give me a nice GUI based back end panel.

Free panels are like, zPanel (now Sentora), then webmin, Froxlor, ISPConfig, where as paid options (better) are like cPanel.net and DirectAdmin.

You may search for their tutorial too.

Personal I may recommend to try Sentora, if you chose a panel.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-the-sentora-web-hosting-control-panel-on-ubuntu-14-04