the permissions of these folders: 

ow_pluginfilesow_userfiles,ow_static,ow_smarty/template_c

should be 777 recursively. 

Do you have correct URL in the HOME URI in ow_includes/config.php file?

My permissions are all set for read/write for those folders.  My home URL is http://localhost/index.php/.

it should be just http://localhost/

Hello there,
I have also experienced the same problems years ago, but I found out that my hosting was incompatible with the oxwall, I switched my hosting and everything was working fine.
Make sure your local server meets the requirements of oxwall:
http://www.oxwall.org/hosting

ross...Thank you.  That fixed the problem.

Durlabh Ashok...The site was running fine on my hosted site.  It was here at home on my laptop where I was having the problem.

Thank you both for your input.

Great. I'm going to mark the thread as Solved

Well...it was working until I attempted to login and kept getting an error.  I just can't seem to coax the site to run on my localhost.  It's all good though.  It seems to be working ok on my web space.

What error? The website without styles?

Try to enable dev mode and refresh the website. By the way, do you use Lamp of Xamp?

I finally got a graphic display for the site on my localhost.  When attempting to login with the user name and password I set during installatiion I was greeted with a red bar which simply said "Error" and nothing else.  Any attempt to "Join" greeted me with a page not found error.

My localhost installation was simply Apache and MySQL.  I did not install a group package such as LAMP or XAMP.

What I meant is that I installed the Apache, MySQL and PHP individually....not as a package.

I'm not a stranger to programming.  I've been programming since 1973...probably longer than some of you have graced this earth.  LOL.  I've worked with quite a few different CMS systems such as e107, PHP-Nuke, PHP-Fusion, etc.  Just this one instance of getting the Oxwall set up on localhost is giving me a bugaboo.  It's running fine on my web space.  I love this framework and have no idea why I didn't switch to Oxwall a long time ago.  I hung in with e107 for a lot of years until their latest migrations to fantasy land.  I hope to stay with Oxwall from now on.  In some areas I've lived this would be referred to as "the bee's knees".  I'm still in search for a couple plugins I would like to add into my system but so far I'm thoroughly pleased.  Kudos to you developers!

Quote from Rev. Curt Guldenschuh I finally got a graphic display for the site on my localhost.  When attempting to login with the user name and password I set during installatiion I was greeted with a red bar which simply said "Error" and nothing else.  Any attempt to "Join" greeted me with a page not found error.

My localhost installation was simply Apache and MySQL.  I did not install a group package such as LAMP or XAMP.

Do you have default htaccess file in your local installation?

As to the "Error" message you can take a look at this tutorial of troubleshooting: https://docs.oxwall.org/faq:parse-error-troubleshooting

Most obviously your server does not meet our requirements in some way, unfortunately I can't provide much of assistance here as it is a local installation. 

I found the solutiion.  I had to edit the apache2.conf file.  Open the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file and locate the following section near the bottom of the file...

<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Change AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All

Advisable to restart the server.

The site has now allowed me to login and navigate.  I have been able to successfully traverse several links but have not had time to do further testing as yet.

Great. Thanks for letting us know. 

No problem.  I appreciate you all stepping up and trying to help me solve this.

I just thought that I would add that I have been wanting to use the Add New routine to add new plugins to the system rather than go through the file copy routine.  I couldn't find any info on how to set this up for localhost.  I worked it out tonight and it functions as expected.  I can select my zip package and upload it to my localhost system and the Oxwall properly unpacks and installs the plugin.  I kept getting permission errors.

Since setting my SMTP to my website's email server the emails are now seeming to work on my localhost installation.

Do you mean the error' Provided user does not have permissions" or what? 

If yes, then you need to install the software in the first place via FTP, otherwise you will have to copy the files manually. 

Right...I was being told I didn't have permission.  What I ended up doing was to take possession of the folders from root and that alleviated the no permission problem.

I am now receiving email notifications.  I am able to perform a mass mailing.  I am also able to install plugins and themes via the Add New function rather than having to go the file copy route.  I also used gnome-scheduler to set up my cron.  I did not need to edit the htaccess file.  The only file I edited was the apache config file to make the one change which I noted above.