Drupal For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Getting and Installing Drupal

In This Chapter

• Downloading Drupal

• Putting Drupal on a Web server

• Gathering database information

• Configuring Drupal

Before you can use Drupal, you have to install it. Manual installation can be the trickiest part of the Drupal experience. Once you've got it up and running, getting your site going will seem rather easy. Just push on through this part, keeping in mind that it does get simpler.

You have several options. If you want to go the easy route, you can sign up for an account with an Internet service provider (ISP) that will do the dirty work of installing it for you. I highly recommend this, and in this chapter, I offer you the names of a few ISPs I've had accounts with. However, in case you are more ambitious and want to install it yourself, I cover that here as well.

To begin the installation, you need to decide where you want your Drupal site to be installed and understand why you might not necessarily install it on that computer sitting in front of you. This chapter shows you the ins and outs.

Deciding Where Your Site Will Live

The purpose of a Web site is to share information with the people who browse to that site. The first decision you need to make is where (on what Web server) your Drupal installation will run because that governs if and how people can view it.

Note

The term Web server can mean either

• Web server software, like Apache or Internet Information Server (IIS). These programs send Web pages over the Internet to Web browsers when ...