Basic question how do I create a a MySQL database?
Asustor NAS, Zenphoto's 1.5.7.r1
I've gone down the rabbit hole and not sure what to do next. ZP looks great, but it's a pretty raw package.

Package has downloaded something called MariaDB, I have downloaded myPHPadmin.
It's asking questions like the mysql character set and the number of rows.
What do I select?

First: Current Zenphoto release ist 1.6.

Zenphoto is meant for webservers and you normally have an interface on your webhost to create database (mysql or mariadb are great). So you need a webserver environment as noted on our requirements page.

I have no knowledge about an "Asustor NAS" and how that works. If that does not have such a server system, you have to setup it that (which that I cannot help with).

If you then installed phpMyAdmin you can create database with it.

The character set of a database in Zenphoto 1.6. should be utf8mb4_unicode_ci or if supported utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci. Tables and number of rows is not important as Zenphoto's setup process does all that.

Please ask this on the Asutor forum. They should know how to configure a webserver and database on your NAS.
BTW: the latest Zenphoto release is 1.6

thanks. I don't know how to install the latest version. I'll wait till the guy who packaged it up for the Asustor does the new one.
I'm really looking for a turnkey solution, don't have the time nor inclination to start learning the intricacies and incantations of linux etc.

I'll wait till the guy who packaged it up for the Asustor does the new one.

If you have a webserver you find all the install instruction on our site. If your NAS is such a specific "closed system" that you need someone to package things up for it to work with that likely is your "turnkey solution".