[lug] web site advice needed

[Robert Racansky]

So I've set up a web site to promote my upcoming book.

Right now, it's just a static site with a "Coming Soon" message.

It's running on Red Hat, which is actually my first effort at setting
up a Linux web server.  My day job was a Windows admin.

I would like to set up a related

 - blog, and

 - forum


Are there any recommendations for blog and forum software that I should use?

Or, perhaps even more importantly, any that I should avoid?


Main criteria is that it has to be free , and easy for a novice to set up.

Thanks.