Re: [tlug] what CMS would you recommend for FB type website?

[Kyle Hasegawa <kylehase@example.com>]

Drupal may not be the easiest route but it's a stable CMS with a very 
active community.

> I'd prefer to work with the standard LAMP tools as I don't know
> Ajax or anything about Ruby/Rails.

Drupal's target platform is LAMP.

> For features I'd like to have users know when other users are on,

"Who's online" is included by default.

>   as well as possibly throw together a quick
> chatroom which supports more than one user and automatically integrates
> with the initial user login.

There are many Drupal chat modules to choose from depending on your needs.

> Finally, I'd like it allow users to post
> articles and media etc. with relative ease- limit the PEBKAC factor if
> you know what I mean.

Drupal has many input modules with features like bbcode and wysywig as 
well as a blog API for posting via desktop client.

If you want to really customize a Drupal instance for social networking, 
there are entire books devoted to just that.
http://www.packtpub.com/build-social-networking-website-with-drupal-6/book

Kyle