Deploying a Laravel Project in a LAMP Ubuntu 20.4 Droplet. All pages throw 404 not found except the root "/"

Hi All.

I created a droplet using the LAMP droplet from the marketplace and used the following link to set it up:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-laravel-with-nginx-on-ubuntu-20-04

Replacing the nginx with apache configurations. The home page(root) is showing but every other page throws a 404 not found. At some point I also had to go through this article for one of the errors that was appearing with apache:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/apache-configuration-error-ah00558-could-not-reliably-determine-the-server-s-fully-qualified-domain-name

Any help would be appreciated. Below I’ve added my error log, the apache 000-default configuration, and the .htaccess file in the Laravel public folder.

error.log

[Mon Aug 16 17:19:58.899476 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 34331] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Mon Sep 13 13:34:22.991863 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 863] AH00163: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Mon Sep 13 13:34:23.072201 2021] [core:notice] [pid 863] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Mon Sep 13 20:29:25.526729 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 863] AH00171: Graceful restart requested, doing restart
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
[Mon Sep 13 20:29:25.670884 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 863] AH00163: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Mon Sep 13 20:29:25.670901 2021] [core:notice] [pid 863] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Mon Sep 13 20:56:05.646164 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 863] AH00171: Graceful restart requested, doing restart
[Mon Sep 13 20:56:05.757679 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 863] AH00163: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Mon Sep 13 20:56:05.757696 2021] [core:notice] [pid 863] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Mon Sep 13 21:10:59.372735 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 863] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Mon Sep 13 21:10:59.530231 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 34337] AH00163: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Mon Sep 13 21:10:59.530299 2021] [core:notice] [pid 34337] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Tue Sep 14 00:00:08.417459 2021] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 34337] AH00171: Graceful restart requested, doing restart

000-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html/public

        <Directory /var/www/html/>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        <IfModule mod_dir.c>
            DirectoryIndex index.php index.pl index.cgi index.html index.xhtml index.htm
        </IfModule>

</VirtualHost>

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
        Options -MultiViews -Indexes
    </IfModule>

    RewriteEngine On

    # Handle Authorization Header
    RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
    RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

    # Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
    RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]

    # Send Requests To Front Controller...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>