You're not alone. It's not for lack of options, but like many parts of Drupal, the automated install process hasn't "stayed still" for more than a version for

You're not alone. It's not for lack of options, but like many parts of Drupal, the automated install process hasn't "stayed still" for more than a version for the best practices to really evolve. The most famous way is something called Install Profile. The definition and underpinnings of this module have changed drastically from version to version, and it is not that well documented. A more recent entrant is a system called Aegir which is a set of multiple modules. There is also a Drupal shell called Drush that can automate some things, but obviously it itself needs to be present and installed to be utilitzed :D. Myself? I've written an ugly bash script that basically downloads and moves all the modules into place, and talks to mysql to enable them. I would never advise anybody else to use this method, or at least not use my script ;D In a recent Lullabot podcast (probably the most well-known, and definitely most helpful Drupal-based business I know of), they referred to a database-centric way of automating installs that sounded like it could also be just a db script. They promised a blog post, which I am eagerly anticipating. Anyway, your main point about Drupal setup being cumbersome, is true. Most people whose work is all Drupal have ways to deal with this, but if Drupal is only a small part of your computing life, it's not obvious what the best practice is.