@iMoshi ok here we go. I just started over, and followed this thread
But let me summarize.
Bring up your Ubuntu 18.04 VM
Do not perform update (i.e. sudo apt-get update / sudo apt-get upgrade)
Then
sudo apt install python-minimal
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/frappe/bench/master/playbooks/install.py
sudo python install.py --production --user frappe
(mariadb password and admin password)
And it completed all the way thru and I got it up finally.
Hope it works out for you!!
Chris