I just installed Drupal, and found the documentation in Install.txt to be quite confusing. Obviusly it's written more for UNIX-geeks with direct access to the server than for me, and not suitable for my situation/setup.

I download to my PC and unpack with WinZip. Then I upload to my service provider, and use PHPmyAdmin to set up the database.

In the spirit of Drupal, I'll not going to complain more about this, but try to write a install.txt more suited for those in my situation. Since I'm not techproficient I'm sure this can be done better, but take it as a starting point.

1. DOWNLOAD DRUPAL

You can obtain the latest Drupal release from http://drupal.org/ http://drupal.org/project/releases.
Download the current tar.gz format [Redundant - Thats the only format present] and extract the files:

$ wget http://drupal.org/drupal/drupal-x.x.x.tgz
$ tar -zxvf drupal-x.x.x.tgz

Unzip it.

This will create a new directory drupal-x.x.x/ containing all
Drupal files and directories. MoveUpload the contents of that directory
into a directory within your web server's document root or your
public HTML directory:

$ mv drupal-x.x.x/* drupal-x.x.x/.htaccess /var/www/html

2. CREATE THE DRUPAL DATABASE [This step tripped me bad]

[Delete all text and replace with:]

In phpMyAdmin, create a new database.

3. LOAD THE DRUPAL DATABASE SCHEME

Select the database you just created. Click the "SQL" tab. Click the "Browse" button, and select the file database/database.mysql. Click Run.

[4 and 5 - no changes]

6 [I've no idea what to do here]

Comments

Dries’s picture

Feel free roll a patch against INSTALL.txt that adds a section about phpMyAdmin.

Tommy Sundstrom’s picture

I haven't the slightest idea on what "roll a patch" is (sounds drug-related, but I assume it's not). But I'll do that when I've figured out what it is and how to do it.

BUT I would be much more comfortable if someone with more knowledge of php, sql an drupal would look at it before it's included. So I hope there is some kind of review process included in the patchrolling.

killes@www.drop.org’s picture

Creating a patch is easy (http://drupal.org/patch), but if you don't want to learn it right now, create an issue and append your version of INSTALL.txt. I will create the patch for you. Of course, all patches are reviewed before they are committed.

--
If you have troubles with a particular contrib project, please consider to file a support request. Thanks.

Tommy Sundstrom’s picture

Steven’s picture

"Create a new database": many people only get one database from their provider, which is set up already. Maybe you should add something like: "If your host has already provided a database for you (or you are limited to only one database), then this step is unnecessary"

sepeck’s picture

The point to this is to ADD to the existing install.txt not replace the current documented command line options correct? I don't have phpMyadmin installed on any of my systems and so would not want that part removed.

-sp

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

Uwe Hermann’s picture

Please don't remove the Unix-specific lines, but rather just add the phpMyAdmin-specific lines to the README.txt.

Thanks, Uwe.
--
My Drupal site: http://www.crazy-hacks.org
Soon to be drupalized: http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org

Tommy Sundstrom’s picture

A suggestion for a new install.txt is at http://drupal.org/node/11355 . Please make any comments there.

khodari’s picture

I am really confused. I do not have root access so I cannot configure the MySQL database. I have read the MySQL administration, but I still do not understand how to configure my db.

The confusing part is:
$db_url = "mysql://user:password@hostname/database";

Here is the information I have for my database (slightly altered for security), tell me how should this line be changed based on the info below: (please note that the SQL server is totally separate from the web server)

Database name db101562770
Host name db.perfora.net
Port 3306 (standard port)
User name dbo101562770
Password Nabil

Thanks in advance.

Nabil El-Khodari
webmaster at nilebasin.com
http://nilebasin.net/drupal/

i100yanov’s picture

Your configuratin should be:

$db_url = "mysql://dbo101562770:Nabil@db.perfora.net/db101562770";
freyquency’s picture

my third party host's have used cpanel. In cpanel there is an icon for mysql databases. after selecting that it presents you with add database and add user fields (well, add/delete/assign). At the very bottom is a link to myPHPAdmin...

I find it easier to add users and databases here instead of myPHPAdmin, then go into myPHPAdmin to execute the .mysql files. Also it's very difficult for a first time user to find the text link at the very bottom of the page.

Obviously i'm not saying that it should be changed, just that it might be noteworthy in documentation or an FAQ.

phillc2’s picture

I found this piece of information really useful and I now have Drupal up and running on my server.

My problem wasn't so much understanding the Unix commands, but rather because I am on a shared host I only have access to one database (not the end of the world in itself) but I also could not get a socket connection to MySQL through /var from the ssh command line.

The tips on how to run the database.mysql file from phpMyAdmin was just what I needed!

However................

What's happened now is that all the Drupal tables in my database, that is being shared by about 3 other apps at the moment, do not have any type of Drupal prefix. I had specified a Drupal prefix in conf.php, but obviously loading database.mysql in the way I did didn't create this prefix.

Before I go to far in playing with my new Drupal installation, I'd really like to fix this and put the Drupal prefixes in. As I have a large number of tables in my current database, it's not easy to readily pick out the relevant Drupal ones from phpMyAdmin. Is there an easy way to add this prefix? Is there a complete list of all Drupal database tables somewhere? This way I could even go through and manually change all the names perhaps.

Any tips appreciated.

Cheers
Phill

P.S Nabil, I'd recommend changing your MySQL password now :-)

grendel’s picture

I was in the same situation. I would have liked it by defaul, the drupal .sql file would have had the db's prefixed(drupal_comments, etc). Maybe include the db pre_drupal.sql.

--
eric();

>:-@ | Photography

freyquency’s picture

I made a new database from 4.5.1 and copied the left frame of phpmyadmin. i'd recommend http://totalchoicehosting.com. They provide unlimited databases :) I don't know if you still need the list but it could help someone else. I'm an obsessive freak so i deleted all the Browse: (X Rows) from each line.

access
accesslog
aggregator_category
aggregator_category_feed
aggregator_category_item
aggregator_feed
aggregator_item
authmap
blocks
book
boxes
cache
comments
directory
files
filter_formats
filters
forum
history
locales_meta
locales_source
locales_target
menu
moderation_filters
moderation_roles
moderation_votes
node
node_access
node_comment_statistics
node_counter
page
permission
poll
poll_choices
profile_fields
profile_values
role
search_index
sequences
sessions
system
term_data
term_hierarchy
term_node
term_relation
term_synonym
url_alias
users
users_roles
variable
vocabulary
watchdog

bburns’s picture

To get rid of the drupal 4.6.0 tables, try this in mysql -

DROP TABLE access, accesslog, aggregator_category,
aggregator_category_feed, aggregator_category_item,
aggregator_feed, aggregator_item, authmap, blocks, book,
boxes, cache, comments, directory, files, filter_formats,
filters, flood, forum, history, locales_meta, locales_source,
locales_target, menu, moderation_filters, moderation_roles,
moderation_votes, node, node_access, node_comment_statistics,
node_counter, permission, poll, poll_choices, profile_fields,
profile_values, queue, role, search_index, search_total,
sequences, sessions, system, term_data, term_hierarchy,
term_node, term_relation, term_synonym, url_alias, users,
users_roles, variable, vocabulary, vocabulary_node_types,
watchdog;