I got this up and running after making some weird changes. I don't understand why it worked though.

I have changed the app/code/core/Mage/Install/etc/config.xml as mentioned [here][1] from

    <extensions>
        <pdo_mysql/>
    </extensions>

to

    <extensions>
        <pdo_mysql>1</pdo_mysql>
    </extensions>

But doing this DIDN'T solve the problem! In fact, the installer page now went into a redirect loop. I have reverted this change, and restarted the stack again.

This time, it was showing error messages when I was clicking on continue (strange). I have changed the connection host to `127.0.0.1` in app/etc/config.xml and this time it gave an error message like this: `Error parsing body - doesn't seem to be a chunked message`.

Checking the `Skip Base URL Validation Before the Next Step` box as mentioned [here][2] fixed the problem. Now the site is up and running... thanks to everyone! :)


  [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/a/15910156/1076075
  [2]: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/6808/17030