Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to show you how easy it can be to get a Drupal site going, using a “quick installer.” In order to really get an appreciation for how nice the quick installation process is, you may want to look at the “Installing Drupal Manually” section. In the past, you pretty much needed to hire a developer or to learn some serious technical skills in order to install a content management system.

If you are an experienced Linux system administrator, or you want to learn how to manage servers and install Drupal manually—more power to you! You can ignore some of this chapter. On the other hand, you may still want to take a look at the quick installation options, especially if you see yourself helping others to get Drupal sites going. It’s ridiculously easy and quick.

In order to have a Drupal site, you need to have an Internet hosting account, and the sample company we’re using here is Hostgator. It is a popular hosting company with good prices, and its Quick Installer is impressive. It also occasionally runs deals where you can get $100 in Adwords credit. Adwords is Google’s advertising platform, and it’s a nice thing to have. I encourage you to get familiar with it, as it can be a way to get some attention for your website. Later in the book when we look at promoting your site, we’ll look at Facebook advertising and Google Adwords.