After careful consideration, I decided you're right. After all - the package management capability is what I switched to Debian for in the first place!
And guess what - I works just fine now! >-\ PHP4, mysql and apache are all installed and running from the .deb packages. Can someone now kindly tell me how to remove the files/directories created by the apache install - there doesnn't seem to be an uninstall script, and I don't wanna delete something I shouldn't :O) Thanks for the perseverance, Will - it paid off in the end :-)
