Installing Drupal

I have been looking at CMS's for about a month now, and after reading an artical in a local computer paper I decided to go down the drupal challenge....

I have debian 3.0r1 running and have made the required updates.
I used the apt-get install drupal methode and it began installing 4.1.

I'm wondering if it is a wise idea to continue using the apt-get setup methode as a first time user of drupal, and to some extent mysql/debian/php.

I'm also wondering if there are any other debian users in this forum?????

I've followed all the instructions to install this portal.

I'm getting this error when calling index.php in my browser:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: mysql_connect() in /var/www/htdocs/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 12

anyideas ?

I'm installing drupal on an XP Home box with PHP4/MySQL. Both run fine. I set up the Drupal db fine but got this error when I called up index.php:

.htaccess: order not allowed here

Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks!

How do I diff and patch on Linux? I read the docs, but it isn't mentioned there...
I am quite new to drupal and to Linx, but I think i've got some intersting patches for you...

Can i make such thing?:

For example:
I want to have a static "welcome-page"
which will`be linked "Home"(default)in my menu
&
I want to have another site section where all my posts
(which are now situated on home-page by default)
will be situated and this part of a site
will be linked "News" in my menu.

Is it real? (for less misunderstanding see p.s.s.)

Thanks a lot/

p.s. sorry for english.

p.s.s. in /site configuration/ choosing a "default page" from drop=down menu is not what I want.

First of all sorry for my english and in my opinion drupal is an excellent job.

When an user submit a history appear this message:

user error: Access denied for user: 'xxx@localhost' to database 'drupal'
query: LOCK TABLES sequences WRITE in includes\database.mysql.inc on line 69.

The user xxx have all privileges for database drupal in localhost. After the post show in te page without problems.

Please help me. Thanks.