Cannot get self hosted install to work following directions

Developer help Installation
1

Pretty simple problem and hoping a pretty simple answer. I am by no means a Linux expert so please assume I might be missing a key piece assumed by more experienced Linux people. If I simply follow this (How to install & setup Ghost on Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04 or 22.04) for a complete local install (no prior install, no migration, no external mysql database), I get database connection errors. Ghost install gives me:
Message: Ghost was able to start, but errored during boot with: Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’

And I look into the logs with journalctl I see a NO_PASSWORD error. If I uninstall and, reinstall, then try to add a user to mysql before installing (granting all privileges) I get ER_DBACCESS_DENIED_ERROR.

I am a little flummoxed at this point and would appreciate any pointers people have

2

You shouldn’t use root for the database, and when installing MySQL, do the following.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --yes
sudo apt install mysql-server --yes
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo mysql

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
QUIT;

sudo mysql_secure_installation

sudo mysql -u root -p

CREATE USER 'user_sitename'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
CREATE DATABASE sitename_prod;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON sitename_prod.* TO 'user_sitename'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
QUIT;

Substitute username, database, and password accordingly.

Then use the newly created user when installing Ghost.