Horacio Salizar's set up manual was excellent. It clarified some things and is written in a way that somebody doing something like this for the first time has a fighting change of accomplishing it.

Unfortunately, he left me hanging....not his fault though. Everything worked right until after the log in to the admin page. Then blank page. And no error message to let me know what to do next, or where to look.

I tried searching, figuring it must be in here somewhere, but maybe I am not using the correct terms. If somebody could point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it. Please don't be cryptic. This is new to me

so.. you did get into the admin page (passing the 'this is the first time you've logged into the administration panel' page)? Or did you never get there?

In order to be able to help you fix this, we need some information. What server are you running this on (linux+apache or windows+IIS), what version of PHP is the server running? Is it a shared hosting environment, or are you running it yourself? What XOOPS version are you using?

Also, the XOOPS FAQ has some excellent sections on turning on debug information manually, so we can come closer to finding out what fatal error is causing the blank page. Click the link above to go there directly.

I hope I've been as clear as possible

Herko

thank you Herko. I solved this by using the auto install module with my ISP rather than trying to install it myself.
FYI, I'm starting to get used to XOOPS and loving it. I know a bit of html, no php, but I think I'm going to learn it.