Installing Drupal

Hey ya!

I am currently looking for a new CMS and right now I want to test drupal on my localhost. The installation went some kind of "good". No permission errors so far and tables were build in MySQL database. But after the successful installation (drupal 7.23) on my Linux Mint 13 machine I try to login.
I used "localhost/index.php?q=user". Fine: Loginscreen.. But when I use my login information and press login I get forwarded to "localhost/?q=user" and I see the index.html of the webserver(apache2).

I downloaded the Commerce Kickstart distribution and try to install, I got another type of setup page which I noticed on the tutorials. My configuration is XAMPP webserver with windows 7.1. I was receiving execution time exceeded error; I fixed it by doing changes in php.ini. Then I got another error and removed the distribution from XAMPP directory. Now I am having another error Access denied when I take localhost/commerce. Can any developers help me to solve this?

I am reading the Using Drupal book. I installed Drupal directly from Drupal.org yesterday, with no problems.

Today I entirely deleted that installation, including my database and all Drupal files, and started over (thinking that an installation from the Using Drupal source code might make my life easier).

I put the udsource7-2012-04.zip file on my server, created a new database, unzipped the file, and ran install.php. [I have done all of this twice, just to be sure.]

Hey i am so incredibly absolutely frustrated here, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have installed drupal 6 on my local wamp server successfully dozens of times, this seems impossible at the moment though. Once i have entered the database name and username, the installation begins but for some reasons it stop in the middle and give me a bunch of errors. Below is just a section of what the instation is giving me and i dont have a clue where to begin =/

An error occurred. http://localhost/test/install.php?locale=en&profile=default&id=1&op=do <br /> <font size='1'><table class='xdebug-error xe-fatal-error xe-scream' dir='ltr' border='1' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='1'> <tr><th align='left' bgcolor='#f57900' colspan="5"><span style='background-color: #cc0000; color: #fce94f; font-size: x-large;'>( ! )</span> SCREAM: Error suppression ignored for</th></tr> <tr><th align='left' bgcolor='#f57900' colspan="5"><span style='background-color: #cc0000; color: #fce94f; font-size: x-large;'>( ! )</span> Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\wamp\www\test\includes\database.mysqli.inc on line <i>114</i></th></tr> <tr><th align='left' bgcolor='#e9b96e' colspan='5'>Call Stack</th></tr> <tr><th align='center' bgcolor='#eeeeec'>#</th><th align='left' 

I downloaded the kick_start module and tried installing it.I am getting a different setup page from those i saw in a couple of tutorials. I am using xampp with windows 7. I got the max execution time exceeded error. i fixed it by changing the php.ini file. again i got a different error. so i deleted the module from my xampp folder and started fresh. now i am getting the access denied error when i type localhost/commerce.Help?

Error: SQLSTATE[42S02]: [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0][SQL Server]Invalid object name 'watchdog'.

Received at the end of installation. No other data provided with it. I have tried this on numerous VMWare installs. I've only once been able to get the page to work and not sure what I did. Specs below:

VMWare on Win7 Ult 64-Bit

OS: Win7 Pro 64-bit
Ram: 2Gb
CPU: 4 Core
Fresh install
1. Install SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER 2012 Evaluation)
2. Setup DB Name 'Drupal'
3. Install PHP (php-5.4.20-nts-win32-vc9-x86)
4. Install PHP SQL Drivers from Microsoft (SQLSRV30)
5. Install PHP Manager for IIS (PHPManagerForIIS-1.2.0-x64)
6. Set up PHP for IIS using PHP Manager in IIS.
7. Install Drupal Core
I've tried several Drupal distr. Drupal-7.22, acquia-drupal-7.23.25.6009, drupal-7.x-dev
8. Install sqlsrv files
I was getting many errors for invalid things. This was resolved by downloading dev files for this and/or by editing the query.inc file.

9. I do all the usual stuff of allowing permission to sites\default\files, and to settings.php, for install only.

Finally, I complete the whole installation with DB setup and all, but I get a single message in configuration that states the above message. I do have a screenshot of the error, its just a one liner. When I try to access thewebsite at localhost, I get the below message.

Error