Apache and mod_perl(yes, another thread..)

I have searched through the forums and found several posts on mod_perl and apache, but nothing was ever made clear, and some of the links provided to installation instructions either dont work, or arent very helpful. I am new to these type of things, so this is what I have gathered from my reading. To install mod_perl, I simply need to build and install mod_perl, then go to apache, make clean, build again, then restart the server. Is this correct, or am I way off base? I am using apache 1.3 and have mod_perl 1.29.