Now that you have set up your AMP configuration, a fresh database, and your Drupal file structure on your localhost, let’s get to creating a website.

Under this file structure, any references to your localhost files will begin with the string localhost/drupal-7.8/. Invoke the file named install.php from the root Drupal directory by typing the URL localhost/drupal-7.8/install.php into your favorite browser. You will now encounter a series of screens, starting with the one where you will choose the installation profile, standard or minimal. Currently, standard has 29 modules enabled while minimal has only 10. You will want to get familiar with which ones are enabled for both types so that you can quickly pick one going forward for each new installation you execute.

After you have made the profile selection, the 'choose language page will appear where you will normally select 'English (built-in)'. When you reach the 'set up database' screen, leave the database type as is and enter your new database name as well as its username and password. For your localhost, you can use 'root' for the username and leave the password blank if you wish.

When you get to the 'configure site' screen, you will be enter a site name that will be displayed in your header and a site email address, which you can leave as is. In the next section, you will create the site maintenance username (not to be confused with the database username) which is typically admin, and password for the 'super user', which is allowed to do anything on the site. Then select your default country and time zone as well as your update notifications preferences. The Drupal installation wizard will have done the rest behind the scenes and when it is finished, you should now have a working Drupal installation and be able to visit your new site, already logged in as the 'super user'.

You are now ready to install contributed modules. But how do you find which modules you want to use for a particular functionality ?? Well, Drupal itself is a project and all modules and themes are also projects so if you know the name of the module you are looking for, navigate to drupal.org/project/, substituting with that module name, and you will find information about it on that page.

And if you don't know the exact name of the module ?? Fortunately, there are places you can search for the module names using keywords. From the modules tab right on the drupal.org site is one spot. Another website to look up modules is drupalmodules.com, where you can find reviews on some modules as well as the link for the project page back on the drupal.org site.

To install a module, click on the 'install new module' link at administer > site building > modules. From there, either enter the URL of the tarball location and Drupal will upload it or download the tarball yourself and upload it. Either way, Drupal will then install it automatically into the sites/all/modules folder. Then navigate to the modules page and enable it. Rinse and repeat for any other modules you wish to include on your site.