I underwent Drupal training two times, and so I can say that I have experience in configuring and organizing a college website using Drupal. But I have yet to install Drupal on a machine by myself - the whole thing, I mean.
So last weekend, as I set for myself, I tried doing it on my own, in my own Ubuntu Linux laptop. I installed LAMP server using tasksel. (I encountered an almost 2-hour struggle with that particular part, because I could not make Apache web server work. After about 5 to 6 times uninstalling and purging and reinstalling, it finally reactivated.)
Then, I followed the installation video (I will link the Youtube video soon), and also an Ubuntu guide on installing drupal. I used one distro in particular, Open Enterprise, because I was led to believe that all the capabilities I want (rotating banner, social integration, blogs, SEO tools, etc.) are already there and just needs activation. I was wrong.
After installing (of course, I had to create a database first with MySQL, download the package and decompress it to the /var/www directory of my Ubuntu), it worked, but the apps are not yet there, and when I tried to install (download the package and install), there were some problems.
I could not actually figure out what the problem was. I am not sure if I don't know the username and password, or I have not configured it right (I did a few more steps apparently to allow clean-url to work), or the software was not configured for FTP, or something.
I installed additional packages (vsftpd I think). Still didn't work, after that, but I tried a different username and password (my computer login and password), and the FTP installation for the additional App (rotating banner, SEO tools, social integration) finally installed.
And yes, besides installing, they did work!
So now, the next stage is to try what I did on a laptop machine on a real server environment. I hope I will be successful, because if I am, I will do the same for our CAS website. It will be cleaner, easier to maintain, and more integrated to the UP Manila website that IMS is planning to develop.
