PROBLEM Failure to install

[adc]

This is the second attempt to get GS up and running. The first attempt failed at the point where the directory contents are ftp'd to the server. I mucked with permissions until files went across but subsequently ran into issues with a theme. I have done a clean install on a newly formatted SD card and get the following
Command: cd "/var/www/admin/template"
Error: Directory /var/www/admin/template: no such file or directory
Command: cd "/var/www/admin"
Error: Directory /var/www/admin: no such file or directory
Command: cd "/var/www"
Response: New directory is: "/var/www"
Command: mkdir "admin"
Error: mkdir /var/www/admin: permission denied
Command: mkdir "/var/www/admin/template/js/ckeditor/plugins/wsc/dialogs"
Error: mkdir /var/www/admin/template/js/ckeditor/plugins/wsc/dialogs: no such file or directory
Command: cd "/var/www/admin/template/js/ckeditor/plugins/wsc/dialogs"
Error: Directory /var/www/admin/template/js/ckeditor/plugins/wsc/dialogs: no such file or directory
etc etc no files were transferred.
The setup is a raspberry pi, raspbian latest, 192.168.1.123 as issued by the router, latest apache and php from raspberrypi.org, latest GS. it appears everything is owned by root and set to 755. I am using filezilla from my mac. I have spent way more then 5 min searching the forum and see people have had all sorts of permission issues but I haven't seen anything as basic as this.

Thanks in advance
A