We are well on our way! Go to the GeoServer download page as shown in the following screenshot (http://geoserver.org/download/) and review the installation options available. You will find some different packages for GeoServer. We will use the Web Archive version:
You may select a release from two different branches--Stable and Maintenance. Both of them are built for production purposes, so you can choose whatever you prefer; also, we suggest you select the latest release as it contains all the new features the developer team has just released.
Apart from the Production tab, you may have noted there are two other sections--Development and Archived. Inside the Development section, you will find a nightly build, these releases are not suitable for production as they may be prone to bugs, but it contains all the changes the developers did on the source code...