Laravel 5 uses vlucas/phpdotenv for env configuration. http://laravel.com/docs/5.0/configuration#environment-configuration Previous version used env.php files. the new configuration files do not have .php extension
Laravel4 is the current standard. This resolves the name with the custom Laravel.gitignore file in the gitignore.io project. If support for Laravel3 is desired, it should be done in a new file: "Laravel3.gitignore Closes #1196