Setting up Development and Live web site environment

Hi,

I am fairly new to unix so please go easy on me.. I have a VPS on which I would like to setup a development and live web site environment and can't seem to work out what is the best technique for doing so.

I would like to be able to mirror the live site and have a "check out" and subsequent promotion techniques to copy only the "checked out" files. Is this an achivable goal, and if so I would be gratefull for some suggestions on reading materials that would help me achive the goal.

Thanks, Jon.