Taken from Xoops main page

"XOOPS is an extensible, OO (Object Oriented), easy to use dynamic web content management system written in PHP. XOOPS is the ideal tool for developing small to large dynamic community websites, intra company portals, corporate portals, weblogs and much more. Read the All about XOOPS page for more details."

It is not too hard to set up phpbb or phpnuke but in my view they are limited in what they can offer so the focus here will be on xoops communities. I have recently set up www.kickazztrivia.com web site using xoops version 2.0.16, most of it is hidden unless you are a member, this is similar to the Arena except for the extended profiles which is not available in this version.

What you will need

This depends on your skill level and commitment to building your community, the ideal situation would require you get professional hosting that offers PHP and MySQL, this can be a reasonably priced option with hosting costing around $15 per mth or less, I will start another hosting thread with prices and more detailed options later, unless someone else beats me to it :)

I am very lucky to have an ISP that actually offers a 60 meg database website (MySQL) for free as part of my account, although I actually host the Arena myself, which is another option. Perhaps ask your ISP about providing PHP hosting, they may be quite cheap as you are already a customer.

Another option is to do as I have done and host the site yourself, this would require a dedicated PC running 24/7, this would preferably be a server designed for this task, they are actually quite cheap to buy from auctions or ebay if you know what to look for. It is possible also to build a new system quite cheap that will more than suit your needs provided it has adequate cooling and has raid capability. more...

Once you have decided on a hosting option you need to download the version of xoops that best suits your needs (here) and follow the docs\install.html which will take you step by step through the installation process.

Next post I will cover installing modules, my advice however would be to read the xoops website extensively paying particular attention to the beginners corner forum, the themes library to see how you can customise the look of your site and also the module repository to see what features are available for your community.

cheers
FireHorse