[ale] Newbie Apache question

[Patman]

Hi all, 

I'm a Linux newbie.  Currently, I have Redhat 6.0 loaded on my Linux only
PC (old Pentium II-233MHz with 64MB RAM), and I'm trying to get my Apache
httd.conf to be "activated" by the Apache web server after saving changed 
to that file. 

I think I'm missing a step here, but I've loaded Apache 1.3.9, the latest
version on the RH6.0 box, I even have the webserver working as far as
being able to get to it via a direct IP address, i.e. 10.10.10.1
(hypothetically speaking, I have a DCHP'd IP address from Mediaone.net in
Atlanta that I can use to get to the web server.).  So if I put in
10.10.10.1 in my web browser, I will get the congratulatory Apache
index.html file that comes with the Apache/Redhat installation, and if I
put in 10.10.10.1/~joeuser I will get into my html files from the
/home/joeuser/public_html directory.  So that part works. 

Now my problem is when I edit the /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf file
to point the primary index.html from the /usr/local/apache/htdocs
directory to another directory, like /home/joeuser/public_html or do what
it takes to enable cgi scripts in the options directives for the different
directories, none of the changes I make seem to be enacted by the web
server when I reboot the Linux box.  And I'm back to square one, where I
get the Apache index.html file when I put 10.10.10.1 in my browser instead
of getting the index.html in my /~joeuser/public_html directory. Am I
missing something here after I make the edits to the httpd.conf file?

Also I know when I try running a cgi-script (perl), it runs correctly when
I type "perl counter.cgi", but if I just type "counter.cgi" it gives me an
error message. So I must not have the Linux box set up to run cgi's when
they have ".cgi" extensions.  The mode on the cgi is 755.  Supposedly I
have also put in the correct cgi-bin directory for the alias in the
httpd.conf file, but again, I must be missing a step to "read" in these
changes from the httpd.conf file for the web server to know how to handle 
the newly specified server defaults.

Any ideas? TIA.

P@