Visvanath Ratnaweera

You have to reformulate the problem in the correct forum, the "Installations Problems" one here http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=28

Read the instructions on the top page of that forum. Moodle runs on a wide variaty of plattforms ans server components. So give details about yours.

Thirdly describe the problem by giving the symptom, any error message, etc.

The Moodle community is helpfull but _you_ have to help them to be helpfull ;)

> I have left the smtp line empty in config. A strange and disturbing puzzle ...

That is a typical Unix/Linux setting. Without knowing your plattform, server components, versions, etc. nobody can give a specific answer.

This topic is being discussed in the "social forum"
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=32490

There are a few "never ending" topics in the geek world, the "distribution war" is one of the most notorious (abreast with Vi(m)-emacs bashing)

I would turn around the logic, as some of the posters already have tried, and say

The best distribution (for you) is the one you are most famiier with!

Are you sure that your hoster supports PHP?

The way to test is to upload a file, say phpinfo.php with the contents

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

and access http://whateveryourmoodlesite/phpinfo.php with a browser.

You should get a nicely formatted table with technical information.