Help me set up my Linux VM to work on a Laravel project

I need to pull a Laravel project from git and work on it. I am only used to working with procedural PHP locally so there are a few things that are new to me here. I have managed to successfully: - Install and set up VirtualBox - Create an Ubuntu machine (GNOME) - clone the repo I need into /www/var/<project name> - Install packages via composer and npm I understand that I now need to create an empty database to then run a query on to populate it. But I keep getting access denied for user when trying to create a Database. I cannot get past this. I need to get to the point where I am working on the code in the project in a locally buildable environment. Tutorials I have followed: [login to view URL] [login to view URL] In both cases I ran into this permissions issue. I'd be happy to try to fix the point I am at now (the mysql access issue) or do it over again. Everything does look installed and correct except for the mysql access. You can assist me via chat and/or screensharing. Or if you can remote directly into my VM then even better! Requirements - Knowledge in Laravel Environments (including how to edit and run the code from my VM to a browser in my VM) - Knowledge in Linux/Ubuntu - English first language or fluency in English please as I only speak English. - Magic word so that I know you aren't a copy & paste bidder: Squid