What configuration to choose for small community portal?

[Kyyhky]

Hi,
First things frist: huge thanks to everybody who has contributed to coppermine developement and support forum, keep up the good work!

I'm starting a small community portal for my friends. The photogallery is the heart of it, but I'd like to add something else too. For example advanced user profiles would be nice, so our friend from around Finland could share their contact information etc... So I've let myself understand that the best way to do that is to bridge to a bbs software? Don't really need a fancy bbs... And I'd like to use a little "news" etc modules, so I gues the best way is to include a cms of some sort.

I'm not familiar with php and mysql and other sorts of fancy stuff (pretty much html and css for me ) so I've used "Fantastico" to install software to my server (webhost, not my own server). I could use manual installation but I'm "affraid" of poking around with mysql databases

So: What kind of program combination do you prefer from the following (keeping in mind that I need nothing fancy, just maximum stability and usability to coppermine gallery):   
CMS's available through fantastico:
Drupal 
     Geeklog 
     Joomla 
     Mambo Open Source 
     PHP-Nuke 
     phpWCMS 
     phpWebSite 
     Post-Nuke 
     Siteframe 
     TYPO3 
     Xoops 
BBS:
phbb2
SMS

Already tried integration with joomla using mambo bridge but didin't work at all....fatal error was all I got

Thanks for your replys...

[Joachim Müller]

coppermine can be bridged with mambo/joomla, phpbb and smf from your list - the other scripts don't apply. We recommend smf, although this depends on what you want to accomplish, there can be no generic recommendation. Make up your mind first if you need a cms or "only" a bbs. We don't recommend fantastico installs though, they're known to be buggy.

[Kyyhky]

Thanks for a quick reply

We don't recommend fantastico installs though, they're known to be buggy.

aah...so maybe I should try to install smf manually. Though I got phbb working, kind of. I don't really remember what the porblem was with it, maybe I should try that again when I get home...
I just don't like the fact, that if I bridge to bbs, then I have to use bbs login screens (redirected, I know, but it can confuse my users, who really aren't that experienced with computers anw web..). And I really wouldn't need a fancy bbs, so phbb looks kind of over-sized maybe I should just theme it with something minimalistic and be happy with it But the mambo bridge didn't work with joomla. I couldn't even launch bridgemanager.php (cant remember the actual file name) after the instal, I had to manually change bride_enable to 0 from sql database....and the cookies were configured correctly, cause I followed the documentation very carefully

If I integrate bbs, coppermine and cms, which database will be used? ideally that would of course be the cms, cause that's the one you could first login to.... 

Aah, I'm frustrated cause I really don't know my self what I want Ideally my site would look propably look like this: Coppermine in the center, a smal navigation menu on the left, and maybe a "news box" on the right (or below the menu on the left).
I understood that the navigationmenu could be accomplished with anycontent.php. But I would have to create that bar (which anycontent would then load) with php code?

have to go, coffee break is over
Sorry for grammatic errors and typos, I'm a Finn after all

-Kyyhky-

[Joachim Müller]

I recommend coppermine plus minicms plugin then.