Thanks for all of the help. Just to let everyone know, it was embarrassing how simple it was to install mod_perl with the suggestions that I received from Cosimo Streppone earlier in the day. I didn't know that the apt-get and a2enmod steps were available as the perl.apache2.org mod_perl 2 documentation said I had to build both apache2 and mod_perl from the latest source from scratch. (Admittedly, I may have read too many assumptions into that.)
I will say that the "apt-get install" on apache2 did nothing as everything was already there on my system. The "apt-get install" on mod_perl did download a fair amount, however. And, thankfully, when I restarted apache2 after the a2enmod steps, I saw that mod_perl was indeed running. Had I only known the above steps, I'd have saved several days on the build process -- days that I would have much preferred applying to my application. Now, I have another issue: I have created a startup.pl file and placed it into the conf.d directory. However, when I restart apache2 I get an error message to the effect that the first 'use' statement is a syntax error. I'm sure that my problem lies in my confusion as to (1) where to point ServerRoot, and (2) where I'm supposed to put my perl scripts. These are all pretty elementary, I suppose, but if anyone can shed any light, I will be very appreciative. Tom