I was doing a search for free forum codes a couple of months ago and I came across Punbb.  I really fell in love with it at first because you can put little tabs at the top and it was a different type of board code than I was used to.  They even have an instant skinner where you can go and select colors and it creates the css code for your board.

I have changed my mind on Punbb for now. I am not going to use it. You see, at first when I saw the code, it was all dressed up with a "portal" landing page.  I found this task to be too difficult for me and I have decided to find something else.

I need a lot more knowledge and help before I can make my final choice.

From what I understand, you can convert your punbb data into phpbb 2 data if you decide to switch.

I looked at punBB when deciding which software to use and liked it and I think it is catching on a little.  There are several larger forums using it now.  In its very early form I used it for a little league baseball forum that was quite active and it performed very well and the users loved it for its simplicity.