noob

Hey Drupal community,

I have embarked on a bit of a scary journey in the past couple of weeks. I'm in the process of starting my first business, and I decided that eCommerce fit what I had planned. My main purpose for this post is to try to understand what sort of work I am really in for. Could someone please offer their suggestion for a list of applicable modules, and a brief explanation of the things I'll have to learn to complete my sites. For the moment I'll start by explaining the 1st site, because I haven't really done anything for the other 2 yet.

First up: World Art Box

Hej, wlasnie dolaczylem do Waszej grupy.

Mieszkam w Trojmiescie i opiekuje sie kilkoma stronami postawionymi na Drupalu i Wordpressie. Mam prawie zerowe pojecie o programowaniu, szczatkowa znajomosc html, css; zawsze wspolpracuje z web developerem / programista.

Obecnie stawiam sredniej wielkosci strone korporacyjna na D7 i co rusz pojawia sie jakas zagwozdka. Nie bede Was meczyl trywialnymi pytaniami, takze wracam do nierownej walki z nieczystymi urlami, widokami i tabami :)

Pozdrawiam,
mkl

Background in Linux: not much... used Ubuntu & Mint as desktop for a year or so
Drupal dev: couple years now, part time

Currently have my sites (just 2) on a shared hosting situation and want to move to where I'll have more control over performance. Since I love piling on modules in my Drupal installs, query load (I don't know all the proper terms for these things) is heavy.
Research led me to Linode and then to Mercury... and Pantheon. So there wd be easier ways to get my sites up at Linode, but promise of much better performance = irresistible. (Want to pile on more Drupal modules!)

I just cam across this: http://serviceweek.mozilla.org: "Mozilla Service Week [Sept. 14-21] is all about community – your community. We want you to find a way to use technology to make a difference in your neighborhood, your school, your library, your town. We welcome any act of service, no matter how small."

I'm sort of familiar with Drupal but haven't had too much experience. I wanted to start this discussion to ask basic/beginner questions.

A question I'm wondering about right now is the out-of-the-box speed of Drupal. I've installed 4, 5, and 6 (not all at once) and they seem to be slow, right out of the box, with no content or any modules. Why is this? Is it a Drupal problem or is my server not optimizing PHP, or something else?

Has anyone else experienced this?

What are your beginner questions?