Ok, I figured it out, I had to change the radio button for the login modual from joomla/mambo to joomla - smf. Hope this helps anyone else that follows an installer guide and comes across the same problem. Still haven't figured out if and how I can get the 404 page to not pop up when I login from joomla.  Once I push the back button I am logged in fine and everything works from there, its just the initial login that sends me to the 404 page.