Starting the Drupal!!

while installing drupal, first thing to do is to download the latest drupal installation from its site drupal.org. then to start using drupal, there should be a server -either on your computer or on the remote server. i use wamp 2.0 as my localhost.
Now extract the drupal into a folder and then copy it into the www folder of the wamp folder. The installation sequence is as follows:
1. open the root of your web directory. for localhost it is 127.0.0.1
2. choose drupal from the wamp homepage
3. this will start the installation of drupal. choose the language
4. Now you will be asked to create a settings.php file in drupal/sites/default. there is a php file by the name of setting-sample.php in the same directory. just copy and paste that file in the same directory. then rename the copy to setting.php, then continue with the installation.
5. you will be asked to enter the details of the database file where you want to install the database of the drupal CMS.
6. Go to your wamp homepage and select myphp. once there just create a new database file. give it any name. then return to the installation page and then enter the name of the database file you just created in the field database name, enter 'root' as the value of the database user and leave the password field empty. Then continue with the installtion.
7. we are almost done, in the next page you will asked about the details of the site you are about to create. fill in all the details. dont forget to enable to clean URLs (if it says that your system doesn't support clean URL, then go to the wamp and enable rewrite module from the apache modules list accessed from the wamp icon in the taskbar.) then press install.
8. Now the installation finishes in a jiffy, and you will be taken to the default homepage of your drupal site.

COMPLETING THE INSTALLAITON

To complete the installation, we have to install the most used modules and then activate them.
For this, we create directories drupal/sites/all/modules and drupal/sites/all/themes where all the contributed modules and themes are kept.

1. then download the following modules:

• Admin menu
• advanced help
• backup and migrate
• cck
• css injector
• ctools
• devel
• devel themers
• panels
• pathauto
• token
• views
• views bulk operation
• conditional fields (imp)

other modules can be added as per requirement

• backup and migrate
• inherit
• webform
• book made simple
• hierarchical select
  
• conditional fields (imp)

then activate them by going to the modules page. it is advised to deactivate the update module as it will make the drupal installation very slow because every time you refresh the page it will check for the updates of the drupal core and other installed contributed modules.

this is pretty much it.
enjoy!!!