Before you start

Hi
I’m looking at the options for a site I’m making. I have been trying out Joomla, but after reading about Drupal I want to give it a go too. Just want to know if it can do what I need.
Basically, I only want a CMS to provide a framework to allow logins and comments and such, rather than to manage content, as the site will be quite small. I also wish to offer downloads, both free and paid for. So far so good I think.

I have a LAMP setup, and my current database, which was custom built, is several hundred megabytes. Will Drupal be able to import my database and populate a CMS based on the tables inside of that database?

Hello,

our company currently uses MODx a lot for websites with CMS and custom modules. Our customers (and we) love the quick setup and development capabilities of MODx (we can set up a basic site in about 30 minutes), the power of TemplateVariable's, and the way we can integrate custom PHP code in "modules" in the backend CMS. Also the site structure tree view is very important.

I am co-operating in updating the website of a large international community. Currently we use vBulletin 2.3 and vBPortal so it's about time for something new. We have over 100.000 members (ok, only a fraction is posting actively), over 100.000 threads and almost 1.000.000 posts on the forum. Naturally, we want to preserve all forum data.

We decided on building the new site around Drupal 5 and our first thought was to upgrade to the latest vBulletin forum. In a later stage we want to migrate to Drupal 6, when most of the vital modules are ported (max. a year after the launch of the new site), so the final choice of forum must be future-proof and also be capable of heading towards Drupal 6. The forum plays an important part of the community so it must be feature-rich, performant and robust. So I have a number of questions for the experienced Drupal users:

- Would the 'official' Drupal forum meet these requirements? I know there are lots of modules you can install but can it withstand a comparison with vBulletin? Does it eat away much system resources? And of course, are there (3rd party) tools available to convert the vB database?

We are planning to start a new gaming community geared towards console gamers. We want the site to be similar to ign or mmorpg.com as far as functionality. I was going to use joomla but starting to think drupal would be better however I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction in regards to what modules would be best. We will be starting with 360 then hopefully opening wii and ps3 not long after. the sites main function s will be for game reviews trailers news and releases.

Hello!
What Drupal version you advise me to use working with the site http://www.ecommerce-land.com ?
I'm a beginner.