Rails Not Working? Install Notes...

It could be a version problem....

specifics:
ruby-fcgi-0.8.5 *
mysql-ruby-2.7 * - needed latest source

"latest":
fcgi-2.4.0
mod_fastcgi-2.4.2

gems:
actionmailer-1.1.2
activerecord-1.12.2
rails-0.14.2
actionpack-1.10.2
activesupport-1.2.2
rake-0.6.2
actionwebservice-0.9.2
sources-0.0.1

Make sure that you have an appropriately owned FCGI temp directory (ie writeable by your Apache user).  It is supposed to take care of itself, as long as your "LoadModule fastcgi..." comes *after* any User directive in httpd.conf.

I also found that RAILSROOT/log has to be writable by the Apache user for fcgi.  A good way to debug fcgi problems is to "su -s /bin/bash apache" and run RAILSROOT/public/dispatch.fcgi.

The Rails documentation could be a little more specific about fcgi installation.  After installing fcgi and mod_fcgi from source (you'll need httpd-devel in Fedora), and adding the LoadModule directive to httpd.conf, you need to edit your RAILSROOT/public/.htaccess rewrite rules to use dispatch.fcgi instead of just .cgi.