WordPress 'Failed to write wp-config' I've done all the Chowns – Phpmyadmin

I am on a mission to install wp-deploy on my local installation of linux mint. I had a wordpress working in xampp via the bitnami plugin but wp-deploy needed to go to htdocs. I began getting permission errors like crazy. I am in day 4 of complete madness which last night resulted in me somehow accidentally corrupting my system files (maybe I chowned myself out of them but i dont think I touched anything besides the lampp folders) and having to reinstall mint so all further actions are taking place on a blank slate.

What I tried before the wipe:

• install wp-deploy in xampp htdocs: Fought permissions so long I forgot all of what I tried but ended up wondering if maybe the issue was xampp so..

• gutted xampp and installed mysql, php, apache2 and phpmyadmin individually. After much debugging it ran and I was able to serve an html file. However when I set up wordpress it did not have access to it’s own directory. Spent a bunch of time Chowning around and it seemed if I got one thing access I denied another thing. Then it all blew up and I got the blue login screen and went into recovery/wipe mode.

NEW INSTALL ATTEMPTS

To reduce the number of variables I decided I would install regular old wordpress as I do not think the issue is related to wp-deploy.

This is what I’ve done today:

-Installed Xampp and dragged wordpress into htdocs/myprojectname/
After navigating to localhost/myprojectname/wordpress/wp-admin I was presented with the setup form. Got error ‘failed to write wp-config’

-Chown -R www-data:myuser ./lampp/
Caused mySql to get permission denied error in the xampp control panel

-Gut Xampp, try again
Again, failed to write wp-config so this time I..

-Chowned only the wordpress folder using www-data

-still fails so I restart xampp

-Chowned only the wordpress folder using www-data:myuser

-still I get failed to write wp-config

-Chowned the directory containing the site just inside htdocs as my user

-same error

All of my google-fu takes me to posts that resolve when someone chowns the directory. Either I am experiencing a different error or I am doing something wrong. I am desperate. Help me obi-wan kenobi. You are my only hope.

——-UPDATE——-

Some other posts recommend building wp-config manually. The reason I haven’t been doing this is because the underlying issue I want to solve is that wordpress has not been able to write to it’s own folder and therefore cannot install plugins or do anything besides sit there. I was making the assumption that the wp-config error indicated the same permissions fight I had been in since before the wipe. I decided to manually build wp-config and it was as I thought, wordpress cannot install plugins.

——-UPDATE——-

I have chmod 777ed the directory and still no go.