Can you run WP on a serveur which does not accept htaccess

I am thinking of moving to another service provider (because my site’s been down without explanation)

the one that I’m thinking of tells me that, because PHP functions through CGI (whatever that means) the system will not understand a .htacess file, and that, instead a php.ini file has to be used.

Can WP work under these conditions ? What modifications have to be made ?