Installing Joomla 2.5 in Pictures

I've decided that my new site needs loads of cool extensions, like Community Builder and Kunena, but I'm concerned that I'm not going to get the full potential out of it if I'm stuck in the past on Joomla 1.5. They may not play nicely at all! So I've decided to upgrade to Joomla 2.5, and take you all along for the ride :)

Download the new Joomla installation (I'm using Joomla_2.5.3-Stable-Full_Package.zip that I downloaded this morning), un-zip it and put it under XAMPP (or whatever you're using)

Open in your browser: http://localhost/your-website/installation/index.php




Check that the Recommended settings are correct. My Output Buffering should be Off, but is On. I think I can change this in the php.ini file later, but it doesn't matter. As long as all the top settings are the same!



Accept the license:



Now add your database settings. If you are using a hosting package like 1and1 or something then you'll have to create a new database on there and they will give you the connection details. I will be creating my one on my local machine and then FTPing up to my remote host. I use Akeeba Backup which will automatically ask me for my new database connection details on my remote host. But here, I put my local details:


As I already started building my website in Joomla! 1.5, I had to rename my old database and create a new one. I used phpMyAdmin to do this by selecting the database, then clicking the Operations tab and renaming the database. It CREATEs a database in the new name, copies over all the data and then DROPs the old one.

My details were:

Database Type: Mysql
Host Name: localhost
Username: joomla_user
Password: *******
Database name: myfunkywebsite
Table Prefix: [the auto-generated one] p0y2_
Old Database Process: Remove




Click next through the FTP details, we won't be using them.

Now add in your website name (and Meta Description / Meta Keywords), your admin deatils.





You will also be strongly urged to add Sample Data if you are a beginner. Do this if you're a beginner so that you have something to look at and browse through. Otherwise if all you're going to do is delete everything straight away, don't bother :)

Next you'll be asked to completely remove the installation directory:




This is necessary for Joomla! to work and is a security feature. The two icons above will take you to your site or the backed Administrator area.



Congratulations on your installation of Joomla! 2.5 :)