To create a project in laravel, run

Code:
cd ~/www
composer create-project laravel/laravel your-project-name --prefer-dist
Lets say, you want to create a site YOURNAME.DEV, you run


Code:
cd ~/www
composer create-project laravel/laravel yourname.dev --prefer-dist
Now you will see a folder yourname.dev in your www folder.

composer will download many files required for laravel and put them in vendor folder.

Now to start built-in dev server, run

Code:
cd ~/www/yourname.dev
php artisan serve