As I'm sitting in my first session of DrupalCampToronto (12 May 06), "Introduction to Drupal" by Khalid Baheyeldin, I'm realizing the incredible momentum powering Drupal worldwide. Over 60,000 pieces of content (not counting comments) on drupal.org, 59,000 registered users, over 64,500 web sites running drupal, the NDP is using it, and so many more... Even Foreign Policy magazine, a NATO web site and Tim Berners-Lee web log - the father of Internet!
Khalid first covered the basics of Drupal (what is is, core Drupal vs modules and themes, its history...) and showed us next how to install it from using shell access. Note that this is not necessarily needed - this site, for example, is hosted by Siteground, and Siteground offers automatic installs of many Free and Open Source Software packages (including Drupal) through the Fantastico utility in the C-Panel. Unless you comfortable using shell access to a server, I suggest using a hosting company that automates or offers the installation ofdrupal. If you prefer to to it yourself, it's not that complicated - I have done it to install a multi-site configuration (many sites running off the same drupal install).
Next, we covered the basic decisions and choices and how to configure drupal settings accordingly: menus, blocks, primary and secondary links, extra modules such as TinyMCE (used on this web site), etc... Thanks Khalid!
[cross-posted on G2TT]
