I wanted to import data into Drupal from elsewhere - in my case, from XML exported by another system.

Perhaps the easiest way to interface with Drupal at a simple level is to use the Services module. This lets you, for example, create applications in other languages which can create, list, or update Drupal content. There is a mix of documentation for it, some of which is a bit dated.

So here's a quick example of how you can use a Python program to create a node in Drupal. Hope this helps to get you started if you need to do something similar.

I was setting up a multi-user Ndiyo system, which was based on the Ubuntu Linux distribution. But this was going into a public internet-cafe-type situation where I didn't want users to be able to do things like reconfigure the network or delete items from the menus. I gather this is easier to manage under KDE, but we had gone far enough with the default Gnome configuration that it didn't make sense to change.

It's moderately easy to find your way through the web interface, but it's less obvious what's going on under the skin, particularly if you're used to a normal RedHat machine.

Note: I've no idea when I first wrote this - but I've kept it around for historical interest!