Tutorial for installing Joomla 2.5 and adding your first extension

For this tutorial we’ll gonna show you the most basic things about Joomla, manual installing it and adding a simple extension to it. This is for Joomla 2.5 but the installation procedure is about the same for other previous versions so it won’t matter if u have an older version.

1. Firstly you will need to download the archive with Joomla 2.5 from their official website (http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/) , preferably the latest stable version and store it on your local computer, but don’t extract it yet.

2. Then, in case you are using cPanel (and i highly recommend to)  prepare the MySQL database and create it from cPanel>MySQL Databases and add a user to it (be sure you remember the database name, user and password)
In case you are using GoDaddy go to the control panel and select the MySQL icon, and then, on the next page select Create New Database to start the setup of a new SQL database.

3. Its time to upload the Joomla package, the easiest way is with cPanel File Manager, upload the package to the directory where you will be installing it and then right click and select Extract to get the popup menu and then Extract Files to actually to the process, after this click the close button once the files have been extracted.
The reason it is better to extract the files after you upload the package is that it goes much faster like this then to upload the extracted files one by one.
For GoDaddy just ftp the files to any directory or to the root of your hosting account. The advantage of installing Joomla! in the root is that you run Joomla! directly from your domain so you don’t have to redirect visitors of your site to a sub directory.


4. Open your browser and go to the URL of the installation directory on your website, in case you unpacked the files on the main directory then you can type “domainname.com” and in case you extracted the files on a subdirectory then it should be something like this : “domainame.com/subdirectoryname”

5. After doing all that the installation script should load, the first thing you will have to do here is to choose the Language, choose the one that suits you better and then from the upper right corner click Next.
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6. On the next page you will have a Pre-Installation Check to see if the system requirements are met on the server. If something isn’t right then a corresponding message will be shown. If all system requirements are met click Next.
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7.  On the next page you should read and agree the GNU General Public License
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8. Next thing you will have to do is to type the MySQL details which you added at Step 2. You can choose either MySQL, MySQLi or MSSQL and also you can leave the generated prefix as it is.
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9. Click Next and then you should see the FTP Configuration page, keep the default settings, this will be the FTP Account that handles all file system operations when Joomla! requires FTP access to complete a task. Note that you can edit them after the installation in case you need to. After this click next.
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10. Now you’ve got to the Main Configuration page, add here the desired site name, your email (and it should be a valid one), username (preferably not “admin”) and a password.
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11. Click Next and then you should be on the last page of the installation, here you will be getting a confirmation that Joomla 2.5 was successfully installed and that you should click the Remove installation folder to delete all the installation files from your server. You must delete the files or you won’t be able to access your new website.
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12. Now your website should be ready and you should be able to login with your administrator account, click on the upper right corner to do that or type the URL where you installed Joomla followed by “/administrator” (example: domainname.com/administrator”)


Adding an extension:


  Installing Joomla components is easy and it requires almost everytime the same actions, follow these steps to install your first extension:

1. Download the extension you want to install on your website (http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions) and store it on your local computer

2. Now go to your admin panel and go to Extensions>Install/UninstallImage

3. Click on browse and find the package with the extension on your PC, after that click Upload File & Install
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4. Your installation should be completed but some components might need additional steps to be followed so be sure to check that.

For uninstalling an extension simply go to Extensions>Install/Uninstall, then choose between Components, Modules, Plugins, Languages or Templates and then check the checkbox next to the extension title you want to uninstall and press uninstall.