Joomla set up problem - baseurl not mapped correctly

[#1]

Hi All,
Firstly, I have already trawled the forums for some hours to get some of the answers to the problems I have been having.  I hope some kind soul can assist me in getting over my final hurdle.
I've been trying to set up Joomla 1.5.8 into my plus net cgi space.  I've overcome most problems:

• 
  I've established that it will NOT be possible for me to turn off register_globals as .htaccess or adding in a php.ini file to each directory will NOT work on my hosted space (though please someone correct me if I have been misinformed).


• I've managed to get the correct FTP settings and get Joomla to verify these.

...but failed in one area:

• I have failed to get Joomla to run correctly from a subdirectory.  I can only get it to fully work if it is located at the root of my cgi space.

I'll elaborate a little.  If I install Joomla into a subdirectory, e.g. /testing, I can get through the install process fine, but when I view the site, none of the CSS is imported.  Looking at the HTML source, it appears that the baseurl path is not being prefixed to the start of the stylesheet link paths and instead is just beginning /templates/XXXX/....  You will not that these are absolute URL paths.  Interestingly, if I view the administor's section of the site, the CSS is imported correctly and everything is displayed nicely.  In the main public area of the site, without the CSS obviously just renders unstyled HTML.
After failing to resolve the issue I have successfully installed Joomla into the root of my cgi space and as you would expect, all the templates display correctly in the public facing area of the site (all the URLs are still absolute paths starting from "/").  I have successfully managed to install Joomla 1.5.8 into a subdirectory at work.
Has anyone else come across this and managed to resolve the problem?
Thanks,
Stuart.

[#2]

It's been a while since I set Joomla up from scratch but i seem to remember having a similar problem.
If my memory is correct it's down to an incorrect value in the configuration.php file. Check that the line:

var $live_site = 'http://domain/your_subdirectory';
is correct with your subdirectory at the end.
I hope it's as simple as this but at least it's somewhere to start!
Good luck.
Andrew

[#3]

Ah, the beauty of Community Forums!
Thanks scubarew, that was indeed the answer.
Many thanks indeed,
Stuart.

[#4]

I'm just happy that I've actually been able to answer a question for once!

[#5]

Quote from: stuartmanderson

I've established that it will NOT be possible for me to turn off register_globals as .htaccess or adding in a php.ini file to each directory will NOT work on my hosted space (though please someone correct me if I have been misinformed)

You have been misinformed, you can turn off register_globals with a php.ini file in each directory that you have php files in. I've done it myself and it works fine.