phpmyadmin 404 error on fresh ubuntu 12.04 install

Question

I regularly set up Virtualbox ubuntu setups to run as local webservers. I have set these up several times and never had an issue. However, something has changed:

1)VB guest additions no longer allow me to copy and paste (I'll worry about that later)

2)More importantly phpmyadmin no longer works as installed - Initially going to localhost/phpmyadmin gave a message that the page could not be found. So I have followed some instructions which told me to do the following in var/www:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/phpmyadmin phpmyadmin

which has created a phpmyadmin directory in /var/www but now I get an error saying:

the mysqli extension is missing.

If I run phpinfo mysql and mysqli are listed.

All I have done so far is

sudo apt-get update  
sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install php5
sudo apt-get install mysql-server

and

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin 

I found a post of a similar question which suggested I should do

sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

(I've done this) and edit php.ini and uncomment the line:

extension=mysqli.so

This is not there, so I tried adding it but no joy. I have restarted apache and still no phpmyadmin.

I'm running a windows 7 machine and the guest os is ubuntu 12.04

Solution

Ok I have found the answer to this.

Dont do this step (not needed):

sudo ln -s /usr/share/phpmyadmin phpmyadmin

Dont do this step (not needed):

edit php.ini and uncomment the line:

extension=mysqli.so

Do do this:

sudo ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf

Apparently this serves to "symlink the phpMyAdmin conf file within the apache2/conf.d/" courtesy of pete fisher: http://blog.peterfisher.me.uk/2012/06/27/solution-to-phpmyadmin-throwing-a-404-error/