TYPO3 Frontend access on localhost (BE access working fine) - xampp

Question

after successfully installing XAMP and then typo3 on my Mac, I set up a virtual host to avoid typing long URL when working on TYPO3.
I uncommented the http.conf line dealing with http-vhosts.conf so that I could set up virtual hosts, then I added my virtual host (called typo3dev) in httpd-vhosts.conf and I finally edited my hosts file accordingly.
So far so good, BUT now the issue that I'm having is that while pointing to the BE ( with http://typo3dev/typo3/ ) works just fine (I am able to log in and have fun in there), I cannot see the Frontend:
When pointing my browser to http://typo3dev/ , I get redirected to http://typo3dev/get-started/ where I get a Page Not Found error
Looking at the server error logs in I get that
$[Thu Jun 21 12:39:20 2012] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File does not exist: /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1/get-started
By the way, my hosts file looks like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
127.0.0.1 typo3dev
my httpd-vhosts.conf like that:
NameVirtualHost *:80
#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
# The first VirtualHost section is used for all requests that do not
# match a ServerName or ServerAlias in any <VirtualHost> block.
#
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs"
ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1"
ServerName typo3dev
</VirtualHost>
Thank you very much in advance for any help/ comment/ advice
Cheers

Answer 1

This looks like a RealURL/Apache configuration problem to me. Make sure that you allow .htaccess in your Apache configuration ...
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1"
ServerName typo3dev
<Directory /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1>
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
... or configure the RewriteRules directly in the VirtualHost section.
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1"
ServerName typo3dev
<Directory /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1>
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/typo3/introductionpackage-4.7.1>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/(typo3|typo3temp|typo3conf|t3lib|tslib|fileadmin|uploads|showpic\.php)$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^/(typo3|typo3temp|typo3conf|t3lib|tslib|fileadmin|uploads|showpic\.php)/.*$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Remember to reload / restart Apache after making changes to the configuration.

Answer 2

It's seems to me like you have installed the wrong package. Install only the source package because all other package is for demo. Also if you can avoid Apache. It's complicated and bloated. I can recommend lighttpd. It's much easier to configure especially with virtual domains.