Yes, I did have a portal running in about 5 minutes, but it was done in ASP. It was not very configurable and used it's own message forums, which were very crude. It also was not that easy to configure to your own tastes. PostNuke is very superior to the non-php ones I found and I tossed them out almost as soon as I looked at them.
I now run PostNuke as I have changed servers to one that allows PHP. However, I would be very willing to test whatever the guys here come up with for those non-php providers.
I just wish they would give us an update, say weekly, even if only to say they are still working on it. This is NOT a project they are going to be able to write in a couple of hours, at least not to have one that works the way I'm sure everyone would like it to work.