Forum hosting/building finding

I have a website at www.hollowell.virtue.nu . Very simple but I just want to share some information and pictures with my family and friends all around the world, friends of mine here in Venezuela as well as friends at home in Sweden suggested I make a forum, so that we all can join in on the same discussions.

Sounded like a good idea but I cannot seem to find any information about making or hosting...

Anyone know how this works? I would like some info about if I have to make my own or if I can just get a template page from somewhere, or can I simply just get one from an internet company? It has to be FREE!!! And preferably very simple ;) I'm no expert on this kind of stuff...

Thank you, Thomas

You can download any number of free messageboard scripts and install them on your hosting company's server as long as they have PERL/PHP/ASP installed and a database like mysql.

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Discussion_Boards/

there is a collection of them for php. they are also available in the other languages i mentioned elsewhere on that site.

they also have flat file forums which dont require a database so i suggest that if your no expert