Noting these down here for reference:

The basics:

Download the latest version of WordPress, and scp the zip to server

# Download the latest version of WordPress, and scp the zip to server
$ scp wordpress-5.2.2.zip chewie@chewie:/home/chewie/c306/holderfolder

# ssh to the remote server, and unzip the zip file
$ ssh chewie@dudley
$ cd c306/holderfolder
$ unzip wordpress-5.2.2.zip
$ cd wordpress
$ cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

That’s phase one done.

Then create a mysql database for this WordPress installation:

> create database holderfolder;
> create user 'holderfolderuser';
> grant all privileges on holderfolder.* to 'holderfolderuser' identified by '...'
> flush privileges;

Now update the database variables in holderfolder/wp-config.php.

Next, copy the template .htaccess file (or just take one from spkeasy or converge, and replace the blogname) to holderfolder. This will take care of the redirects required for the JSON API.

Next, change owner for the folder so Apache can access it. Also give myself, via group, some rights.

$ chown www-data:chewie *
$ chmod g+rw *

Finally, open the url to the holderfolder in the browser, and follow the setup instructions there.

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Finally, if WP Super Cache keeps giving that error in wp-admin, point the WPCACHEHOME variable in wp-config.php to wp-content/plugins/wpsupercache (or equivalent)