You should definitely drop lampp stack use homestead instead.

I might help you with first problem, you need to alter .htaccess please drop it here (best edit OP).

Ok, I misread lampp (read xamp instead), anyway please use virtual host (or homestead) and don't worry about .htaccess it should be good out of box

uncomment this line in httpd.conf

# Virtual hosts
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

now go to the httpd-vhosts.conf and create yourself virtual host something like this

<VirtualHost *:80> 
   ServerName localhost
   DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80> 
   ServerName whateverprojectname.dev
   ServerAlias www.whateverprojectname.dev
   ServerAdmin [email protected]
   DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents/projects/whateverprojectname/public
</VirtualHost>

now save that file and go to hosts and add line

127.0.0.1 www.whateverprojectname.dev whateverprojectname.dev

Now restart apache and you can hit whateverprojectname.dev in your browser without problem

I am on mac so paths might differ

kyslik@k-mcb:~|⇒  sublime /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
kyslik@k-mcb:~|⇒  sublime /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
kyslik@k-mcb:~|⇒  sublime /etc/hosts