Permalinks: Root install = 404

Setting up a new install of WP 2.3.2 and trying out the permalinks. As soon as I modify the .htaccess file, I get an Internal server error on the home page. If I remove the .htaccess file, I can load the index.php but the post links bring up a 404.

I have tried the following in the .htaccess file:

in the server public_html directory, which is where the WP install is (public root):

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /public_html/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /public_html/index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

also, I have tried it in the server root directory:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

I’ve also tried it without ‘BEGIN/END WordPress’, exactly like what WP spits out on it’s permalinks page.

The server info returned is:

Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8b mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 PHP/4.4.7 mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 Server at theconsortia.org Port 80

It’s weird because I host 2 other installs of WP with the same host (not the same server, but same configurations I am told) and I didn’t even have to change ANY .htaccess info for permalinks, they just worked from the start.