On a sunny day (Sat, 14 Jul 2018 11:47:29 +1200) it happened
nospam.IB.JOE@f200.n342.z1.binkp.net (IB JOE) wrote in
:

> JP> >typo, try /var/www/html
> JP>
> JP>
> JP> Or just /var/www/ ???
> JP> That is where the .html files are in my system.
> JP>
>
>the index file was found in the /var/www/html/ directory.  If you type
>www.joesbbs.com you'll see the html file that came with apache telling me to
>look in that directory.

Yes, that server works.

...
sudo cp -r /home/Desktop/Temp/public/* /var/www/html/
....


So destination directory is OK?
sudo ls /var/www/html/

how about the source directory?
sudo ls -rlt /home/Desktop/Temp/public/

It must be one of the 2 for that error message.

And why not just be root and forget sudo
sudo su -

try:
echo "Hello" > /var/www/html/test
cat /var/www/html/test
should show 'hello'

Just run some simple checks.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05