Installing Drupal

Gadzooks.

I've been at this for days. I thought I had made it.

But, still a ways to go...

So, I'm trying to install...

Drupal 4.6

... but...

The problem:
When I go to the first page

http://localhost/drupal-4.6.5/?q=

where it says:

"Welcome to your new Drupal-powered website. This message will guide you through your first steps with Drupal, and will disappear once you have posted your first piece of content.

The first thing you will need to do is create the first account. "

But
*there is no link to click to that takes me to "adminster >> settings"

....
I mean, I can find links that let me configure the webdesign template / marvin / chameleon / etc. / but none of the higher level stuff in the settings... so, I finally ended up typing

http://localhost/drupal-4.6.5/?q=admin/settings

into the web browser address .. and I was able to get to the settings page that way -- but... this doesn't seem right.. to have to type that in everytime...

Also...

although I can get to the user page directly by typing in....

http://localhost/drupal-4.6.5/?q=user/1/edit

into the browser... that is the *only* way I'm able to get there... (again, there's no navigation buttons or links to take me there)

*and* finally, when I try to publish my first blog entry, here's the message that I get...

user error: Field 'revisions' doesn't have a default value

I am trying to install Drupal, and so far I have gotten to the point where I get the Drupal User Login screen, and whem I log in I get the following page:

Hello can someone save me here,i have being using drupal on my site at www.odofin.com/extensis, but after upgraded (as recomended by my host),all i see are errors,andmy visitors are complaining,what can i do please..!!!!!!!!!!
i host with ziggy in the states www.ziggyhost.com

Hi y'all,
We have reached out to some of the high-level developers but have not heard back from any of them yet. If any of you can offer help it's much appreciated. If fees are involved feel free to contact me outside the forums: suzi at thinkinkless.com and jarah at fresnofamous.com
disclosure: we don't have funding but we are going to die young if we can't get these crashes to stop. we may need a "real" drupal developer to jump in.

Here's the deal...
We launched fresnofamous.com yesterday with everything ported to drupal.
Hosting company immediately advised we move to a dedicated server. We are pushing the limits of that as well.
Granted we run a ton of blocks, and were working on tuning the server, but i think there are broader issues:

Overall the cache overhead runs extremely high. I have been monitoring all day. Today i had to drop and rebuild it twice - the last time after cron could not find it.
My instinct is that we have some sort of invalid character data in the node entries that are causing these bugs. The final error i list below looks like the teaser break is the bug. I'm in way over my head trying to troubleshoot.

during cron:

Can't open file: 'cache.MYI' (errno: 144) query: DELETE FROM cache WHERE cid = 'variables' in /usr/www/users/x/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 66.

another from cron:

Got error 127 from storage engine query: DELETE FROM cache WHERE expire != 0 AND expire < 1135987534 in /usr/www/users/x/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 66.

additionally i see a ton of errors like:

Duplicate entry 'menu:108:en' for key 1 query: INSERT INTO cache (cid, data, created, expire, headers) VALUES ('menu:108:en', 'a:3:{s:10:\"path index\";a:288:{s:16:\"admin/aggregator\";s:3:\"115\";s:26:\"admin/aggregator/edit/feed\";i:-2;s:30:\"admin/aggregator/edit/category\";i:-3;s:23:\"admin/aggregator/remove\";i:-4;s:23:\"admin/aggregator/update\";i:-5;s:21:\"admin/aggregator/list\";i:-6;s:25:\"admin/aggregator/add/feed\";i:-7;s:29:\"admin/aggregator/add/category\";i:-8;s:10:\"aggregator\";s:3:\"140\";s:18:\"aggregator/sources\";s:3:\"117\";s:21:\"aggregator/categories\";s:3:\"118\";s:20:\"aggregator/sources/6\";s:3:\"125\";s:25:\"aggregator/sources/6/view\";i:-13;s:31:\"aggregator/sources/6/categorize\";i:-14;s:30:\"aggregator/sources/6/configure\";i:-15;s:20:\"aggreg in /usr/www/users/x/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 66.


Duplicate entry 'filter:1:1ac30658eff9bbdd0c080e21b28904e7' for key 1 query: INSERT INTO cache (cid, data, created, expire, headers) VALUES ('filter:1:1ac30658eff9bbdd0c080e21b28904e7', '


The County Board of Supervisors will decide tomorrow whether or not to approve a contract with Comcast Cable. Comcast is the only cable provider in the unincorporated areas of Fresno County. At issue is PEG access: Public, Educational, and Governmental. Comcast has agreed to add four new channels for government and educational use, but none for the public. Some county residents and activists want the county to hold out and force Comcast to create a public access channel and media center.

I recently installed a local copy of drupal for testing, and was suprised that there was no installer. The install was simple enough that it wasn't a problem, but it would be very easy to create an installer. Is there a reason there isn't one? I can write one if anybody is interested.

warning: in_array(): Wrong datatype for second argument in /home/deviant2/public_html/lore/modules/node.module on line 1314-1318.

Upon attempting to write the first entry in my blog, I get this error. I've looked at the offending code but cannot see the problem. Suggestions?