OT: Accessing users' pages on Apache

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

OK, really stupid question I'm sure.

I've never played with setting up a web server, but last night decided 
it was time to at least learn the rudiments, so I apt-got apache-server.

The default web page when I pointed Moz to "http://localhost"; has this 
to say:

   * The DocumentRoot, which is the directory under which all your HTML
     files should exist, is set to /var/www.

And sure enough, a quick look at /etc/apache/httpd.conf confirms this 
setting. I used Mozilla Composer to create a new "index.html" file that 
just has a single link to another index.html file in my 
home/westk/public_html directory, as mentioned below. This page shows up 
now when I point Moz to "http://localhost";.

   * User directories are enabled, and user documents will be looked
     for in the public_html directory of the users' homes. These dirs
     should be under /home, and users will not be able to symlink to
     files they don't own.


So I created the directory "/home/westk/public_directory" and used 
Mozilla Composer to create a simple ("Hello, World!" style) file, named 
it "index.html", and dropped it into that directory.

Then I tried pointing Moz to "http://localhost/~westk"; and various other 
permutations, and nothing worked.

I spent 30 or 40 minutes last night googling for the answer, and another 
30/40 tonight Dogpiling for one. (Can you believe there's not a simple 
"Beginner's guide to using Apache in a Debian environment" that's easily 
found?)

So, if anyone can point me to what I'm doing wrong, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

Kent