help with setting up a forum site

phpBB is an open-source forum package that is very good. It's also free. I recommend that you go to that site and follow the instructions on setting up a forum.

If you find phpBB is too complex for you, you may try miniBB (http://www.minibb.net/), as we used on our website.

phpbb is pretty simple to set up, simply because the website provides such great support. I have used phpbb on many occassions and have currently set up a board on our hosting website. If you are really bold and adventurous, there are a ton of MODs available that you can use to enhance your forumboard.

Good luck

Thank you Chrisbliss18 I will go to phpbb and give it a whirl.
Thanks again
regards
Keith

Thank you also to Zippee and ayksolutions for help. It looks like phpbb or minibb seems to be the way to go.
Thank you all again.
I will come back with how I get on.
Kind regards
Keith

Also phpbb has quite a number of mods

http://www.phpbb.com/mods/

which you can try out.

No problem, glad to be of help.

Aside from phpbb.com, I would recommend the following sites for finding new modifications:

phpbbhacks.com
forums.area51.com
phpbbstyles.com

If you do have any questions regarding setting it up, feel free to contact me, I would be more than happy to help you out.

Can anyone help me set up a forum site from either a drupal script or any other script from the net. My backsite knowledge is limited so any help would be greatly appreciated. I have registered a domain name and my ISP has mySQL and PHP etc. so I don't need to set that up only tie it in with a site and so on.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards
keith

If you will need other features on your website, aside from a forum, such as photo galleries, blogs, etc. its best to first build your site using a content management system, such as drupal, or xoops, mambo, joomla etc. then integrate a forum such as phpBB, SimpleMachines Forum, vBulletin (commercial), ivisionBoard, etc.

You can view alot of CMSs and compare them at cms-matrix.org
You can test demos of cms's at http://www.opensourcecms.com/

Many of the forum software is integrated into these CMS, either as complete components, or modules or you can have a standalone (seperate) install of the forum, and install a port on your CMS that will allow them to work together.

The CMS will solve the management of your content, and also serve as a base to integrate other features like galleries, classifieds, wikis, blogs etc.
Its also an easy platform for development (as its usually designed for this), as opposed to developing additional features for a forum, which is designed only to be a forum.

For example:

I use Mambo or Joomla most the time. phpBB is fully integrated. I just install a seperate phpBB board, and install the port (connector script) in mambo.
When I want to add a gallery, I just install the famous gallery, or coppermine gallery, on a seperate folder of my site, and then install the port on my Mambo or Joomla CMS that connects the gallery.

This allows the users to just register on the cms, and be logged into the forum, and gallery, and any other addon all at once.

If you go to each gallery, or forum's website, and search the keyword for the cms you use in their forum, you will most likely find they have a port to your cms that you can use, and instructions.
You can also just search something like "mambo phpbb port" or similar on google.

Its a bit harder than just installing the forum, or gallery, etc. but its worth it.