I have been looking into Linode for hosting for a new project I am working on. I am not at all familiar with setting up my own linux distro and then configuring it, but I am wondering how much can be configured via a control panel or whatnot? Basically, here is what I need:

Are any of these present on installation?

Webserver
PHP
MySQL
PHPmyadmin

In addition to those basic things, I need two specific things that I'm not able to get through my current host (precision effect):
A Wildcard DNS record (A)
Full mysql access, so i can create new databases via php scripts, not through a control panel.

If I can get that sort of environment, I will order immediately. But I am worried that I won't be able to set things up correctly...

Well - linode provides a completely unmanaged service. Think if it as if they just gave you a "bare metal" server and the means by which you can install a linux distro of your choosing. That's what linode provides - any further configuration/backup/etc is up to the user.

That said...there is great help to be had either in the linode IRC channel or the support channel of your distro of choice. As far as your requirements go, the vast majority of them (apache, php, MySQL, phpmyadmin, and the webmin control panel) would be able to be installed with a few simple commands. Depending on what your end use-case is for the server, it could either be ready to go at this point or you may need to do more configuration.

I can't speak to your DNS question, as I've never used linode's DNS services.

So...to conclude - you should give linode a try. There are dozens of very good tutorials/howtos online that can walk you through getting a LAMP stack set up, and you can always pop into IRC if you have specific questions. If linode doesn't end up working out for you for whatever reason, they have a very fair policy about getting your money back to you - I believe there's a 7-day full refund policy and beyond that, they'll give you a pro-rated refund.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

-erik

Caker confirmed that wildcard records are supported on the IRC channel yesterday.