What Is the Fastest Way to Install Joomla?

Sometimes, especially if you’re on a slow connection or if your website is hosted overseas (with a slow host), the Joomla installation can take a long time, mainly because of the time it takes to upload several thousand files to your server (Both supported versions of Joomla: Joomla 1.5.25 and 1.7.3 have over 4,000 files each – imagine how much time it takes if the upload of each file takes only a second).

So, what can you do to install Joomla in a few minutes? Well, there are a couple of options, depending on whether you have shell access to the server or not.

If you have shell access to the server

• Login to the shell

• Download the Joomla installation using wget:

  • The code for downloading Joomla 1.5.25 using wget is:

    wget http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/16026/69665/Joomla_1.5.25-Stable-Full_Package.zip

  • The code for downloading Joomla 1.7.3 using wget is:

    wget http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/16024/69674/Joomla_1.7.3-Stable-Full_Package.zip

• Extract the Joomla zip file that you just downloaded

  • The code to extract (unzip) the Joomla 1.5.25 zipped installation is:

    unzip Joomla_1.5.25-Stable-Full_Package.zip -d your_www_directory (your_www_directory is your public_html directory and it is something like : /home/www/)

  The code for extracting the Joomla 1.7.3 zipped installation file is exactly the same as above, you just need to change the name of the file to that of Joomla 1.7.3.

• Now point your browser to the domain of your website and follow the instructions. Of course, Joomla needs a database to install its data to, so you will need to create a database (empty – no tables) or use a database that already exists (make sure you’re using a table prefix that is not already used in this database!)

If you have cPanel

Now, if you don’t have shell access to your website, then another method to install Joomla rapidly is installing it through cPanel (provided your hosting provider has given you cPanel access – most of them do these days). All you need to do is the following:

• Download the latest Joomla installation as a zip file and save this zip file to your PC.

• Upload the zip file from your PC to your public FTP directory (or to any other directory of your choice).

• Login to your cPanel account.

• Click on File Manager (which should be in the third box from the top in your cPanel interface).

• Now choose Public FTP Root from the directory selection (or the directory where you uploaded the Joomla zipped file if you uploaded it to another directory other than the public FTP directory).

• Once the File Manager is open, click on the name of the zipped Joomla file, and then click on Extract, and then choose /public_html or /public_html/yourdomainname as the directory to extract Joomla to. Be careful, if you choose /public_html, and there is already a website installed there, then you will overwrite it. Do this very carefully!

• That’s it! You’re done! You can now go http://yourdomainname.com/ and follow the instructions to install Joomla (you will need to create an empty database for Joomla to install its data)

The above 2 methods are the fastest ways to install Joomla, it only takes a few minutes to install Joomla if you follow any of these methods.

Now, if you’re in a hurry and you think that you need help doing the above, then we’re always here, 24/7/365! Just contact us and we’ll do it for you immediately (we’ll only charge you for an hour of work – check our latest fees to see how much that’s going to cost you – don’t worry, it’s not going to be much).