Follow the step below:
1. Download Packages (installation, sample-data) and Extract
2. Create database and import sample data magento_sample_data_for_1.6.1.0.sql
3. open your virtual host http://local.magento
4. Install sudo apt-get install php5-mcrypt
5. sudo apt-get install php5-mcrypt
sudo ln -s /etc/php5/conf.d/mcrypt.ini /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/
sudo service apache2 restart
sudo a2ensite php5
6. copy images of sample data to /media/catalog
7. you are done!