Before you start

I'd like to try out Drupal 4.6, but I see that it requires PHP 4.3.3+

I currently have PHP 4.3.2 on my Redhat Linux server (which supports numerous websites). I can't for the life of me figure out how to upgrade PHP. I've scoured the documentation at php.net, but it only talks about installing PHP, not upgrading. Does anyone know of a procedure for upgrading that minimizes downtime for my websites (which of course, ALL require PHP)?

I am one of the administrators for a medium sized community of gamming and we are currently looking for a CMS to base our new site upon. We are currently investigating several portal systems and i have a few questions about Drupal, i hope there is someone here who is able to awnser my questions.

Background:
We are a medium sixed gamming community that are currently focused on 2 games (Battlefield & World of Warcraft). We currently have one site for the BF part (home coded) and a common forum that both parts use. We now want to integrate the two parts into one common portal system to manage the entire community. The most importatnt part of the community is the forum that currently is a phpBB2 forum.

Issues:
There is two major problems that we have encountered so far.
1. We have over 200 members and need to move the entire community without every single user have to create a new account or move every single post of in the forum.
2. We currently have a "match-signup" system for the BF site that needs to be integrated with the site.
3. Another feature that is commonly used is a DKP system (http://www.eqdkp.com) that we want integrated into the site to.

This is the list of things that is needed for the community, were point #1 and #4 is the most urgent. If anyone have any feedback or tips on how to this with Drupal, im all ears.

The community:

So I've been messing around installing Drupal locally, fixing any Mod_Rewrite Errors, etc. because I am getting ready to install Drupal on a live site....

The site is partially live....

http://www.example.com/ (will take you to a splash page, saying "Full Site Coming Soon".

http://www.example.com/current_functionality/ (this is the part of the site being used right now)...

I am planning on installing Drupal to a folder like this:

I need to install drupal, purely for displaying articles (stories)

I do not wish to allow sign ups for anyone, but want only myself and other people I manually set up accounts to be able to login and post articles.

On the left hand column, I want ONLY a list of topics displayed so people can click through and see what articles are in those topics. Additionaly I need to control the homepage content.

All other links, like register, download, sections, etc, etc should be hidden and not accessible.

I am just too keen to try out the new 4.7 version so have decided to install the current cvs head version.

I already have 4.6.3 running live on my site but need to know is there anything stopping me from simply creating a new directory on my webserver and setting the current head version to look at the same database as the 4.6.3 version is using?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I want to create an ethnic internet portal. I am open to any type of open source product and/or paid components-modules. Right now I am looking at Joomla/Mambo (I already have a website - http://www.dealbro.com/ using Mambo) and Drupal.

I am talking about following features: