i'm new

[wutacrock]

i'm new at this and i don't know what i'm doing. just wondering if someone could help me out.

[Casper]

You'll have to be a bit more specific than that.

What exactly don't you understand? 
Do you have a website to put coppermine on, that has the minimum requirements, mySQL, php and either GD or Imagemagick?
Have you downloaded the latest version (1.3.2) to your local computer, unzipped it, and read the docs in the docs folder?

I was new when I first used coppermine, and it was a lot easier than I worried about.

[wutacrock]

someone told me to upload all the files to MYSQL, but i don't know what the heck that is. but another person told me upload it to a php, but i can't find something that's actually free.

[Tranz]

Either those people told you the wrong things or you misunderstood them. You should read through the documentation for firsthand information. Here is a thread that discusses free webhosts that fulfill the minimum requirements for coppermine.
http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php?topic=5721.0

[Joachim Müller]

mySQL is a database, you can not upload files there. PHP is a hypertext pre-processor, a server-sided scripting language that is executed on your webserver - you can't upload files to it. The only place you can actually upload to is your webserver's hard disk - this is what we call uploading; that's why it's called "webspace". You use a piece of software to upload that uses a protocol that is named "File Transfer Protocol", that's why this kind of software is called "FTP-software". There are free programs that you can download from many places on the internet that then will have to be installed to your pc. You will need a webhost that provides webspace you can upload to, and this webhost has to fullfill certain minimum requirements if you want to run coppermine.

Joachim