Hi guys,
Sorry for the late reply. Busy with work & ADHD and bla bla so I didn't get around to looking into this again until now.
If your problem is that you can't access mysql database, then your root don't have rights to it, try this:
mysql -u root -p
This seems to have resolved itself. I had not problems setting up databases and users this time...
You do know that MySQL users are not the same as system users?
Yes, I do know this, but the *depth* my knowledge of users and privileges is not what it could be, and I think last time I was trying to avoid creating users with the root account of my virtual server in order to avoid the necessity of those databases having to be run as root (if this makes no sense it is because my working assumptions are flawed)... My understanding of how apache or mysql run as a user on my virtual server is patchy at best, and I am struggling to find more information on-line.
I have once again deleted wordpress and unpacked it, chown-ed to my user rozruch:www-data (they were owned by "nobody" at "nogroup", I think) and recursively chmod-ed directories to 755, files to 644. Wordpress still can't write the initial wp-config.php file. I can create it and cut and paste and then go on to run the instalation script, but since I have done this every time and then gone on to discover that there is a wider permissions issue, I would sooner try and solve it here.
I will keep on trying, but I think this may have me beat.
Thanks again.