You haven’t mentioned addressing the necessary file permissions for the public, cache, and files_dir. If the webserver cannot write to these files, you will certainly get a fatal PHP error. See https://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=PKP_Frequently_Asked_Questions#I.27m_having_file_permission_problems.3B_how_should_I_set_file_permissions.3F
The file permissions problem is a good first guess, but more details on the exact error will be available in the error log:
Finally, note that the process of extracting on Windows and then uploading to Linux is very unlikely to succeed.
Try extracting the tar.gz file directly on the Linux box, if possible.