https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Drupal

Going to install 6.15 on a Ubuntu 9.10

SOURCEPKG=drupal-6.15.tar.gz

SOURCEWWW=http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-6.15.tar.gz

wget $SOURCEWWW

tar xvzf $SOURCEPKG

mkdir /var/www/drupal

sudo mv drupal-6.15/* drupal-6.15/.htaccess /var/www/drupal

sudo rm $SOURCEPKG

rmdir drupal-6.15

sudo mkdir /var/www/drupal/sites/default/files

sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/drupal/sites/default/files

 sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/drupal/sites/default/settings.php

sudo cp /var/www/drupal/sites/default/default.settings.php /var/www/drupal/sites/default/settings.php

sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/drupal/sites/default/settings.php

Adjust httpd.conf

MAke mySQL DB with user name

Launch SIte and run install

You are good to go.