First up, I hope this thing is not on the internet

Second, stay away from root all files and dirs need to be read by the user running the webserver, which should never be root (locate httpd.conf; grep ^User httpd.conf). Probably it's the user apache

If your just fooling arround try setting the apache users shell to "/bin/bash" and set it's password. Login with the apache user. If there is anything you can't do then apache won't be able to either.

Setting every thing to perm 777 is a bad idea anyday.

check out mod_perl if you are seriouse about creating perl cgi's