This is lengthy, but more is better right

I recently reinstalled mandrake 8.0 with medium security. Its running Apache
1.3.19.

And I get the 403 Forbidden error.

I am trying to FollowSymlinks from my html directory (this is in the document root...not user directories), I only have one symlink. I have checked to make sure that the file I am symlinking has read and write permissions and is owned by apache. All other pages work fine, as well as those in subdirectorys and in the cgi-bin bin directory. I have the Options FollowSymLinks directive in the commonhttpd.conf.

I noticed in the error_log that a wrapper was running with Apache.. suEXEC, I disabled that and restarted the webserver with no effect.

As a last resort I am looking to reinstall Mandrake
(which I love) with the security level of low.

The security level of Medium seems to be the determining factor.
(Edited for message length)
################
commonhttpd.conf
################
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>

<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
UserDir public_html
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_dir.c>
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.php3 index.shtml index.cgi
index.pl index.htm Default.htm default.htm
</IfModule>
AccessFileName .htaccess

<Files ~ "^\.ht">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

<IfModule mod_mime.c>
TypesConfig conf/apache-mime.types
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_mime_magic.c>
MIMEMagicFile conf/magic
</IfModule>
# This controls which options the .htaccess files in directories can
# override. Can also be "All", or any combination of "Options", "FileInfo",
# "AuthConfig", and "Limit"
#
AllowOverride All

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/perl>
AllowOverride All
# Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews ExecCGI
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews ExecCGI
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/cgi-bin>
AllowOverride All
Options ExecCGI
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/protected-cgi-bin>
AllowOverride None
Options ExecCGI
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
#allow from .your_domain.com
</Directory>

#
# Control access to UserDir directories. The following is an example
# for a site where these directories are restricted to read-only.
#
#<Directory /home/*/public_html>
# AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
# Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec
# <Limit GET POST OPTIONS PROPFIND>
# Order allow,deny
# Allow from all
# </Limit>
# <LimitExcept GET POST OPTIONS PROPFIND>
# Order deny,allow
# Deny from all
# </LimitExcept>
#</Directory>

# These settings are pretty flexible, and allow for Frontpage and XSSI
<Directory /home/*/public_html>
AllowOverride All
Options MultiViews Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

<Directory /home/*/public_html/cgi-bin>
Options +ExecCGI -Includes -Indexes
SetHandler cgi-script
</Directory>


<IfModule mod_perl.c>
<Directory /home/*/public_html/perl>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
Options -Indexes ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
</Directory>
</IfModule>

<Directory /var/www/icons>
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

<Directory /usr/share/doc>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
#allow from .your_domain.com
</Directory>

<Location /index.shtml>
Options +Includes
</Location>

<IfModule mod_perl.c>
PerlModule Apache::Registry

#set Apache::Registry Mode for /perl Alias
<Location /perl/*.pl>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::Registry
Options -Indexes ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
</Location>

#set Apache::PerlRun Mode for /cgi-perl Alias
<Location /cgi-perl/*.pl>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
Options -Indexes ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
</Location>
</IfModule>


Any help is great
Thanks