By gaoldiesman on

Hi,

I am brand new to Drupal (this is my first post). I have a couple of questions about learning Drupal but first I thought I might give you a little background information that might influence your answers.

First, I just turned 60 and I don't have a coding background. I started learning Joomla a couple of years ago and have since built several sites using that platform. (so I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all) I enjoy learning new things. That's the reason I want to begin to learn Drupal. OK, here are my questions.

I am thinking about getting one of the hosting packages (leaning toward Host Gator or Site5) that let you have several domains and then get a domain name just to use to develop my first Drupal site. Will this work as well as setting up a local server?

Second, I have read about the package that you can download from Acquia that contains Drupal and plus recommended modules. Is this a good idea for a newbie?

Thanks in advance,

Bill in Woodstock, Georgia, USA

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

I like to develop/play around on a hosted site because i have several computers and this enables me to get to my sites regardless of the computer i'm using. I've never used gator, but i'm using site5 and have been very satisfied with them-- even their lowest price shared package has shell access which is very useful.

And yes, I think the packages from acquia are a great start for newbies. The all-in-one damp package is great for setting up a local instance but you'll want the regular acquia drupal distribution (just drupal, not php or mysql) for a hosted account.

Also an option is the one-click installers that come with most hosting accounts. Do not use them for real site development as they can be flakey and error prone, but for a quick way to checkout drupal and play around they're a fast convenient option.

Welcome Aboard!

gaoldiesman’s picture

gaoldiesman commented

Thanks for the quick reply. I had not thought of the advantage of being able to work on a hosted site from multiple computers.

rockitdev’s picture

rockitdev commented

The acquia package is nice, and will save you some time on deploying the seperate modules. at the end of the day, it's just the same as if you went and downloaded the community contrib modules.

as far as learning or being new to drupal, there is an excellent book published by O'Reilly called using Drupal. this is an awesome resource to learn about just some of the things you can do using Drupal. it was written by the Lullabots who are one of the leaders in the community.

gaoldiesman’s picture

gaoldiesman commented

Thanks for the information. I looked up that book and it looks like it would be very helpful.

I have only been researching Drupal for a couple of days but it seems like everywhere I go I find references to the folks at Lullabots.