Hi, all!
Well, the good news is that it looks like I have both a working version of Drupal 5, and that it's pointing to a database with all the data from the old site in it.
However, when I try to follow the instructions given here (http://support.bryght.com/vps/installing-themes) on how to bring in new themes, I can't get them to show up in the list of themes at http://h2otown.info/admin/build/themes.
/var/www/themes/themes has a truly HUGE number of themes in it, but only the following show up when I log in:
bluemarine
chameleon
garland
marvin
minelli
pushbutton
Unfortunately, after the upgrade, I have a pretty confusing situation when I log in via SSH -- I've got tons of folders named /themes, and it's not clear to me which of these I should be putting the symbolic link to the folder with the source files of the theme. None of them, including /var/www/html/sites/h2otown.info/themes, var/www/html/sites/default/themes, seem to have the assortment of themes I see on the site when I log in.
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Updated the documentation
I updated the http://support.bryght.com/vps/installing-themes to be similar to the module install instructions. Can you give that another read-through? The important step is #3, where you create a symbolic link to the theme directory. That's what makes the theme show up in your list.
I created the symbolic link
...the problem is, that there are so many folders that who knows where the right folder is, or what to link it to. The site's been down for six weeks as I slogged through this process, and I'm not getting any closer to the end. At this point, it may be a good idea to shut the site down for good.
This is why there needs to be a new and better community site system than Drupal: it hasn't gotten any easier for an average person to run a real community site on Drupal than it was when I started H2otown three years ago.
http://h2otown.info
Themes
Looking at the setup: /var/www/themes is a place themes can go so that they can get re-used by multiple sites on a server if that's what you want. Not sure how it got to be /var/www/themes/themes (with the extra 'themes' at the end), but I looked at your setup and saw two problems:
Setting up Drupal is hard. Still. That's why we built the hosted service so that it was a 5 minute install with the option of adding install profiles (basically pre-configured sites) and why the VPS servers come with it setup the same way as the as the hosted service, except those with a little more technical knowledge can add modules and themes.
Since h2otown.info is the only site on the server (is that correct?), you can put the themes in /var/www/DRUPAL-5/html/sites/default/themes That is, only do step #2 from http://support.bryght.com/vps/installing-themes (the CVS command) after you've changed into that directory, then step #5, which is to go to your theme administration page. That will get the theme(s) you want to show up in the list and will get them working for the site.
I love H2Otown: I want you to continue the site. I at least want the site to continue as a example of what we can do with open source tools and open source attitudes towards journalism. I think Drupal is a lot easier to use as a community tool than it was when you started...when was it, 2004, 2005? Server administration hasn't gotten any easier, though, so I think that's where the increased difficulty came in, that is, that you went from the hosted service to the VPS.
We're typically hands off on the VPS side of things, that is, we write documentation and answer questions but the systems are otherwise unmanaged. All that said, please let me know if there's anything still not working. I want h2otown.info to continue breathing life into hyperlocal citizen/average person-powered journalism, and I want to make Drupal easier to use and setup for those people.