So you want a web site. You want it to be easy to use. You want to be able to update, edit, and manage content on the fly. You’d prefer not to pay an arm and a leg, but you also want to have a number of features in the system like commenting, maybe even a forum.

Your list could go on indefinitely, but let me stop you right here. There is an Open Source Content Management System [CMS] known as Joomla! which can help you. Actually there are any number of systems, free or otherwise, you could use.

I may cover some of those other options later. For now let’s simply assume you’d like a system which could be running in a matter of minutes, has a massive base of add-ons, and a thriving community behind its development and security, the Joomla! Is one of the most thought-free systems around.

We will assume for the sake of this article that you have SSH access to your server, and that you have both a mySQL database and a phpMyAdmin interface. (if you don’t, I’ll be writing walkthroughs shortly.)

Our first step is to create a folder on our web server to hold the install, and eventfully serve our pages. We do this like so:

Log in to the server via SSH.

Switch to the the top level where you’d like the