Having Trouble Setting Up Laravel – Need Help!

Oh man, setting up Laravel can definitely be tricky when you're just starting! One thing that worked wonders for me was using Laravel Valet for local development instead of Vagrant. Also, make sure your PHP version is compatible with Laravel; that can be a real pain sometimes!

I would suggest checking your network settings, as that cURL error often points to a DNS issue. If nothing else seems to work, try using `composer create-project` instead. Resources like Stack Overflow or the official Laravel docs are great for troubleshooting too!

That cURL error usually means your system can't connect to `cabinet.laravel.com`, often due to DNS or connection issues. I had a similar problem, and I fixed it by verifying my internet connection, switching to a public DNS like Google's, and checking if my firewall or VPN was blocking anything. If it's still an issue, you can consider skipping the `laravel new` command and try using `composer create-project laravel/laravel firstwebsite` instead.

I think that tutorial might be a bit outdated since it's from last year. You might want to check the latest installation guide directly at the Laravel documentation to ensure you're following the current steps.

Are you on a Mac or Windows? If you're using a Mac, do you have Homebrew installed? Sometimes the setup can be different based on the OS.