Need "xemacs/init.el" => "emacs/init.el" help

[Tom Browder]

I have bitten the bullet to start using Emacs vs. my 20+ years using
XEmacs use.  I have never been a real power user, but I have my
init.el doing the things I need most.

So far I have discovered the excellent "M-x list-packages" way to
install packages and have started trying to duplicate the behavior I'm
used to with XEmacs.  I've also discovered Eric Schulte's "Emacs 24
Starter Kit" here:

  http://github.com/eschulte/emacs24-starter-kit/

but I will save that for a bit later.

One of the things I use all the time in XEmacs is NO line wrapping
except when I manually use function "fill-paragraph".  (I have that
bound to a key for ease of use.)  I will admit that the
"fill-paragraph" didn't work reliably in XEmacs in all modes (I hope
Emacs will be able to fix that), but for the most part it does what I
need in XEmacs.  But I cannot get it to work in Emacs.

Here's my entire Emacs init.el at the moment (all blank lines and some
comments removed):

; Personal emacs mods of Tom Browder
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/";))
; packages installed via M-x list-packages:
;   perl6-mode
(setq-default major-mode 'text-mode)
(set-default 'truncate-lines t)
(setq-default fill-column 70)
(global-set-key [f6] 'fill-paragraph)
; prefer cperl for Perl 5
(defalias 'perl-mode 'cperl-mode)

So far, and only using a text buffer, the truncate lines t seems to
work, but I can't get any such line to wrap with the "fill-paragraph"
function.

I have read about the init.el entries not normally affecting modes
already loaded without special lisp code.  Is that what may be
happening in my case?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

BTW, the major motivation for the change to Emacs has been the arrival
of Perl 6 and a special Perl 6 mode available with Emacs.  In
addition, all the *emacs people I correspond with on various projects
use Emacs.  Emacs is still not as pretty in appearance as XEmacs, but
functionality seems much better.

Best regards,

-Tom