Laravel 5.2 run in localhost without using php artisan serve

Okay, so I created a Laravel 5.2 app (mylaravel). I am currently working in Ubuntu 14.04 with XAMPP for Linux 5.6.15. The app works whenever I run it using php artisan serve (afterwards it works by visiting http://localhost:8000 <-shows my login page). I can login/logout, etc. Without running the artisan serve first, visiting http://localhost/mylaravel will render my login page BUT upon trying to login it says "The localhost page isn’t working" with error code 500. What I'm doing wrong here? Thanks in advanced.

via Chebli Mohamed