Board question

JohnR · Post by **JohnR** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:50 am

Spike,

Have you been happy with phpBB for the board? I have a client who is asking me about setting up a board (non aviation) and they wondered what software was available. I'm much more experienced as a user on BB software than a tech so thought I would ask your opinion. Their main criteria was free/low cost and stable. It will be a low volume site.

spikescopilot · Post by **spikescopilot** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:54 am

I'm not Spike, but I can tell you that getting it installed and initially configured for him was a breeze. Since it's a free one, you will *really* need to keep up on the patches; security fixes are coming out constantly and we did get burned a couple of times on our old server.

I don't think he's had any major complaints yet (and you can see the sheer amount of customization he's done -- user map, galleries, etc). His only real complaint may be the upgrade process, but again, it's only a pain because of the amount of code customization he's done. I'll sure he'll chime in with some comments for you at some point though.

JohnR · Post by **JohnR** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:51 am

Thanks for the reply. This is just the info I was looking for. As far as the updates, that is a just a fact of life in the computer world now days. To many people have nothing better to do than try to figure out how to trash other peoples systems. They should really get a life and build an airplane or something.

I'm pretty sure the client is not planning on any customization so the updates shouldn't be to bad. I believe I will put up a test system and do a little testing. Your info helps.

Post by **Spike** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:52 am

John, Im very pleased with phpbb. Ive done a fair amount of customization, but even with that, its pretty darn easy to upgrade the patches. If you have a straight system, patching is extremely easy as long as you are somewhat comfortable with software. The release patches in drop and run format for different upgrade paths. If you dont want to do that you can upgrade with the infamous "patch" command. Even with the stuff Ive done I rarely have to patch by hand. It also has lots and lots of support.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

-- John

JohnR · Post by **JohnR** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:36 pm

Thanks for the feedback John. I actually found that when I checked on my server that I host small sites on I can set it up to auto config phpBB for clients. I did so and did a sample install and all went well. It also offers an update feature so that should be covered also.

Thanks again.