Is Drupal fit for my project? (mini-encyclopedia)

Hi, I'm new here, so please be kind :)

I love most things about cars, and have a pretty large database on car accessories; from classical stuff to the weirdest thing you can imagine. I started to create a wiki using mediawiki in the hopes of extending my knowledge, and discovering new accessories with the help of contributors. But after discovering Drupal, (about 2 weeks ago) I started to see more possibilities, and distanced myself from being totally reliant on the concept of a wiki.

...But I am still unsure, so I am hoping that some experienced Drupal developers can give me some pointers. I have seen the demo wiki site created with Drupal 6 using wikitools, and the pearwiki filters, and I'm aware of its current functionality. What I am hoping for are alternative ways to create a encyclopedia by centralizing on the core features of Drupal using its stable modules, which I have a very limited knowledge of at this time, but willing to learn.

I would like to have these features on my site.
(( user posting/editing, category pages, image uploads and other general things are assumed possible))

1. Foreign language pages that interlink between corresponding titles like Mediawiki. (I only need English, German & Italian. Not every language on the globe)

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Some basic questions after 3 days

So after 3 days from absolute cold I have drupal5.7 running on a local xp box under xampp for study. I have managed to integrate gallery2 and a forum and have test users. So I know it works, albeit by trial & error. I'm still struggling conceptually with nodes etc and my sql knowledge is minimal.

Some questions as I need to upgrade an existing photo club site.

The club site is running on a linux server on a shared host (streamline) using standard html pages and phpbb3 & coppermine. Bit scrappy as I can't integrate the BB & coppermine (incompatible versions I found out afterwards) hence the look at Drupal.

1) I would like to instal drupal on the server without it taking control from my index.html front page so the existing site can work until I get the drupal one fully configured. Ideally Drupal should reside in my root folder (htdocs) not a sub folder but will this stop me using the original site whilst testing the new one. I understand that an upload folder should be above htdocs

2) Should I have just one sql database for the entire drupal setup or is it advisable to seperate out the gallery to another database?

3) Is there a tutorial/manual that describes the logical structure of Drupal so I can see how it all hangs together (nodes & blocks etc are a new concept).

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STICKY: Before you start - README

Greetings and welcome to the Before you start forum.

Drupal is a flexible and powerful Content Management System / Content Management Framework that allows a number of people of varying levels to build websites. That said, there is a learning curve. How steep depends on your starting skills and your end goal. Despite the learning curve, Drupal is not rocket science and with a reasonable amount of work most anyone can learn to use and build sites.

As Drupal is a CMS with a built in forum system our community contributed documentation resides in the handbooks which is built with the Book module. These can be reached through the Documentation tab at the top of the page.

The Drupal community has never been overly concerned with marketing, as a result the install base is largely invisible unless you know what to look for. For a sampling of Drupal sites check out these links.

• Success Stories
• Drupal showcase forum
• Buytaert - Drupal sites
• Drupal sites

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