This evening I wanted to tell you all about a super easy way to start your own website. If you have access to a decent computer that you want to dedicate to running a website then TurnKey Linux is for you. To quote their site,

TurnKey Linux is a new open source project that aims to develop high quality software appliances that are easy to use, easy to deploy, and free.

In a nutshell, we believe everything that can be easy, should be easy!

Packaging a solution as a software appliance can be incredibly useful because it allows you to leverage guru integration skills to build ready to use systems (I.e., turn key solutions) that just work out of the box with little to no setup.

Drupal is an awesome web application that does most of the work of managing a website for you. In their words

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website.

Now for the really good part... TurnKey Linux offers a downloadable CD that has Drupal already setup for you. Literally, all you have to do is

1. Download and burn the CD
2. Put it in the computer you want to make a web server
3. Boot it up
4. Choose the install option
5. Answer a couple of questions
6. Power off the computer
7. Remove the CD and power up your new server

Has this perked your intrest? If so, or if you just want to see an example of a site running on this setup, check out http://www.wgretc.org