Onyeibo Oku writes:
This is tiring. At this moment I am left with the possibility that SELinux may be in the way. I cannot think of a way to prove this hypothesis.
How about the obvious, disable SELinux temporarily? To dynamically disable it before the reboot, run the following command: # setenforce 0
Alternatively disable persistently:
- Open the SELinux configuration file: /etc/selinux/config. Locate the following line: SELINUX=enforcing
- Change the value to disabled: SELINUX=disabled
- Save your changes and close the file. On the next reboot, SELinux is permanently disabled.[1]
Or, if it is SELinux, the denial should be logged in /var/log/audit/audit.log.
In step 2, you could also set SELINUX=permissive, which permits but logs accesses that would be denied under SELINUX=enforcing.
See also https://www.tecmint.com/selinux-essentials-and-control-filesystem-access/ for a SELinux tutorial that explains all of the above in greater detail without going entirely off into the weeds.
This is speculation. Perhaps I should try another installation method other than Virtual.
If the permissions and ownerships are in fact correct as you report, that's going to be a lot of work for a very low probability of success.
Footnotes: [1] Thanks to IBM for this summary.