I am planning to open a Local Area Network Forum in my own campus hostel which all are connected by LAN.
Is there a way to do that ?
The forum purpose is just for our hostellers medical QandA only.
[Not plan to use Web Hosting online as the line that connect to the internet is so slow ~ even i am struggling to get here]
[plan to use my own comp as a 'server' for that forum]

I seek around for manny websites and crack my head with MYSQL, Apache, PHP and PHPBB......
install and uninstall for more then 10 times and cant make any component works.
is there any simpler way ~ i know nothing about software ~
is there any step to step guide that really helps me ?
Thanks.

[what is a listen port ? dunno where to find]
[anyway, our connection is behind proxy, did that interfere the result?]

Install XAMPP fro0m http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Then install the forum software.

That should be gist of it.

Where to get forum software

Can u recommend us?

http://www.phpbb.com
http://www.simplemachines.org

Thanks for ur help and my first ever lan forum is up

yes u can. install wamp or xamp or more customize install apache, mysql, php manually.

than from there u r able to install phpbb(i recommend this since got alot of support).

ur frens can access it using http://yourip (e.g http://192.168.1.17)

using phpbb is simple
1st, get those LAMP up first
and the u may install any forum software like phpbb or IPB (like LYN)
for more software, just browse www.sourceforge.net

its not neccessary to be LAMP, can be WAMP/XAMP