I have an aspiration to setup a Content Management System for a personal web site and would welcome some proposals or good advice!

As yet I do not have a domain name and have come across the term "LAMP" Linux Apache MySQL and PHP. I have experience in Linux only however my occupation is that of Systems/Software Engineer so I am comfortable with the learning process.

On my site, I'd like to have a few static articles (which I will build up as a set of HOWTOs or guides on all sorts of things). I will want to upload images for these articles. I also would like to create news (temporary) items. I'd like themeing and weblinks/downloads and maybe sell the odd thing via paypal (a cart). I dont see the need for forums as yet.

I've come across PhP-Fusion which is recommended. I have looked at WordPress but was disuaded by poor security and features. I'd like a CMS that does not requrie too much "admin"!

Do you folk have any views on what sort of server I would need, hardware requirements, broadband requirements, security issues, software etc.

thanks.

I've found OpensourceCMS a very nice resource for experimentation (they have live demos of a fat collection of CMS's, blogs and more).
If you want a full fledged CMS, I believe stuff like geeklog, drupal and joomla are excellent tried and tested solutions.
I recommend a quick skim through the site to narrow down your choices. Most of the ones I've tried have been fairly easy to set up, and pretty much all of them have easy administration pages.
(Edit: completely missed your last line, so I don't think I answered your question at all Maybe someone else can pitch in on hardware, b'band, security etc)

Opensourcecms is an awesome resource for trying out CMS packages..

I have found postnuke to be easy to setup and use. a quick google search should locate an article from Linux Magazine a few years back on how-to setup postnuke. and Customizing Postnuke it was a very short article, easy to follow, and a great starter project for CMS. Also look at MaxDev (mdpro) a fork from postnuke, that was done rather nicely.

I've just started messing around with Joomla, and so far I'd say it seems a lot more difficult to me that postnuke. Although that could just be my perception since I'm familiar with Postnuke but not Joomla. It will take me a bit more time than my one evening of it to make a fair assessment on how easy or difficult it is to manage.

oscommerce is a highly recommended e-commerce/storefront package that integrates with Joomla and several other CMS packages.



another CMS packages to look at would be XOOPS

Thanks guys - could you possible assist a little further ...

please would you kindly make a close examination of my orig post and suggest a suitable CMS. There are many options provided in the responses and I seriously would not know one over the other.

Just to add to the above, in terms of broadband requirements: I'm unsure as to whether the webspace provided by the ISP might be sufficient - its 55MB and how to setup my server IP address and link it to a domain name, my IPS (virgin media UK) gives dynamic IP addresses???

Also, my synaptic repos has something called flatnuke - any relation to postnuke?

Just to clarify then, what I am looking for is:

a CMS app that is dead simple to set up and:
is relatively secure.
cart shopping (downloads)
news items
articles
faq
blog
photos (album)

also,

What is the relationship bewteen a CMS, modules and e-commerce/storefronts?
What is the best way to set my site up: get a fixed IP address from a domain registration company or get a site to "host" it, whatever that means. Any views?


thanks

CMSMS looks good - trying it out now. It is a contender for the "2007 CMS award" !