I am not sure if you are trying to setup a server at home with PHP / MySQL yourself or you are looking at installing phpbb in a hosting account. Anyway, I'll assume you are getting a hosting account.
PHP and MySQL is supported on almost all Linux based web hosting provider, and most of them are offering 'Cpanel' hosting account control panel. You don't need to download PHP and MySQL to your hosting account as they have already been installed by the hosting provider, all you need is the program, phpbb.
First, you will need to get a hosting account with one of these Linux hosting provider, follow the instruction to create a MySQL database and a MySQL user, grant all access for the MySQL user to the MySQL database, and write down the connection info for later use :-
host: localhost
database name: myloginname_mysqldbname
database user: myloginname_mysqluser
password: password_set_for_myloginname_mysqluser
download phpbb, uncompress the file and then upload them to the 'public_html/forums/' (so that you can enter
http://www.yourdomain.com/forums/ to access the forum), make sure your FTP session is set to ASCII mode.
look for the 'config.php' file you have just uploaded in the hosting account, change the file permission to '-rw-rw-rw-' (linux command : CHMOD 666, or you can look for this change file permission option in your FTP client)
After files uploaded and setting the file permission for 'config.php' file, you can run the phpbb installation script, open up your browser window and enter :-
http://www.yourdomain.com/phpbb/install/install.php
in the screen, enter the correct values in respective fields :-
Default board language: English
Database Type: MySQL 4.x **check your server mysql version
Choose your installation method: Install
Database Server Hostname/DSN: localhost
Your database Name: myloginname_mysqldbname **from mysql creation process above
Database Username: myloginname_mysqluser **from mysql creation process above
Database password: password_given_for_myloginname_mysqlusr **from mysql creation process above
Prefix for tables in database: phpbb_ **leave as default
Admin Email Address: enter forum admin email
Domain Name: Enter site domain name
Server port: 80 **leave as default
Script path: /phpbb/ **path to phpbb files, depend where you place the files
Administrator Username: forum admin username
Administrator Password: forum admin password
Administrator Password: enter again the password above to confirm
After entering the above value, click 'Start' to install the program, the installation script will then use the database connection info given to login to the mysql database created, and then setup the table structure for phpbb and load in some default values. Also, the configuration data is saved in the 'config.php' during this process.
After the installation, you will need to remove the 'install' folder from your hosting account for security purposes. You will need to reset file permission for 'config.php' back to '-rw-r-r' (CHMOD 644)
Done.
You can now follow phpbb's instruction to login to phpbb administration screen to setup the forum.
Hope this helps
