Wim Mostrey Engaging Drupal

As mentioned in my previous post I'm working on end-user documentation on how to install an installation profile. I've now come around to publishing the first draft.

What is an installation profile?

From Installation profiles:

Installation profiles are a feature in Drupal core that was added in the 5.x series. The Drupal installer allows you to specify an installation profile which defines which modules should be enabled, and can customize the new installation after they have been installed. This will allow customized "distributions" that enable and configure a set of modules that work together for a specific kind of site (Drupal for bloggers, Drupal for musicians, Drupal for developers, and so on).

Please note that an installation profile can only be used when you're installing a new Drupal instance. This means that you can not run an installation profile on an existing Drupal to add extra functionality. You can also only select one installation profile, it is not possible to install a wiki installation profile along with a French language profile for instance.

Installing the profile

1. Start by downloading the installation profile and unpacking it.
2. Read the documentation on the installation pack you downloaded. This can either be found on the profile's project page (example: Innovation News Installation Profile) or in the README.TXT that came with the download (example: Drupal Hebrew Installation Profile). It will contain installation instruction such as putting the .profile file in the /profile directory and downloading extra modules or a theme for instance.
3. Download these modules and themes and put them in the right directory. This is usually sites/all/modules and sites/all/themes.
4. Go to your site's install.php and select which installation profile to install.

Enjoy your fresh pre-configured Drupal installation!