Fedora 7, Apache 2.2.4-4, Drupal 5.1 - No Clean URLs

Hi, all.
Drupal n00b here.

I have been playing with Drupal for a week now, after my server melted and I wanted to use something a bit more high power than a phpBB2 site for my users. One of them suggested Drupal and here we are.

I am having big issues with getting Clean URL's installed. I've read the Apache 2.2 docs. I've search this site top to bottom. I've Googled all about getting mod_rewrite working. But, I am at a loss. This dog won't hunt.

So, I am giving in and asking the n00b question and hoping that someone can lend an eye and and some advice.

As stated, my setup is Fedora 7, Apache 2.2.4-4 and Drupal 5.1.
Drupal is not the root of my site, but rather is in a subfolder:
/var/www/html/drupal-5.1
but I symlinked it to /forum and this is what I direct my users towards.

Here are the important bits of code.

httpd.conf:

...
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
...
# Each directory to which Apache has access can be configured with respect
# to which services and features are allowed and/or disabled in that
# directory (and its subdirectories).
#
# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive set of
# features.
#
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>
...
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
#   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
    AllowOverride None
...

If I set this second AllowOverride to All, I get error 500 in the web browser when I restart the service and try to access the site.

My .htaccess came from one of the suggestions on this site, but I would rather have mod_rewrite be working globally if possible. Yes, I own the server. It is not hosted.

#
# Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
#

# Protect files and directories from prying eyes.
<FilesMatch 
"(\.(engine|inc|install|module|sh|.*sql|theme|tpl(\.php)?|xtmpl)|code-style\.pl|Entries.*|Repository|Root)$">
  Order deny,allow
  Deny from all
</FilesMatch>

# Set some options.
Options -Indexes
Options +FollowSymLinks

# Customized error messages.
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php

# Set the default handler.
DirectoryIndex index.php

# Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
# but the following cannot be changed at runtime.

# PHP 4, Apache 1
<IfModule mod_php4.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
</IfModule>

# PHP 4, Apache 2
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
</IfModule>

# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
</IfModule>

# Reduce the time dynamically generated pages are cache-able.
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresByType text/html A1
</IfModule>

# Various rewrite rules.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on

  # If your site can be accessed both with and without the prefix www.
  # you can use one of the following settings to force user to use only one option:
  #
  # If you want the site to be accessed WITH the www. only, adapt and uncomment the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule .* http://www.example.com/ [L,R=301]
  #
  # If you want the site to be accessed only WITHOUT the www. , adapt and uncomment the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule .* http://example.com/ [L,R=301]


  # Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory and
  # the rewrite rules are not working properly.
  RewriteBase /forum

  # Rewrite old-style URLs of the form 'node.php?id=x'.
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  #RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([^&]+)$
  #RewriteRule node.php index.php?q=node/view/%1 [L]

  # Rewrite old-style URLs of the form 'module.php?mod=x'.
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  #RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mod=([^&]+)$
  #RewriteRule module.php index.php?q=%1 [L]

  # Rewrite rules for static page caching provided by the Boost module
  # BOOST START
  <IfModule mod_mime.c>
  AddCharset utf-8 .html
  </IfModule>
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cache
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/user/login
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/admin
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !DRUPAL_UID
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$
  RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/%{REQUEST_URI} -d
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/%{REQUEST_URI}/index.html -f
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/$1/index.html [L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cache
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/user/login
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/admin
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !DRUPAL_UID
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$
  RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/%{REQUEST_URI}.html -f
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/$1.html [L]
  # BOOST END

  # Rewrite current-style URLs of the form 'index.php?q=x'.
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

# $Id: boosted.txt,v 1.4 2006/12/05 10:39:19 arto Exp $

I'll be honest with you, I do not fully understand what is going on in this file.

Any ideas?

Thanks.