How to install Laravel 5.2

Let use

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel project_name "5.2.*"

This is because you installed the Laravel installer with global, which makes it globally available for all projects and installs it to /home/.composer.

This should be all right because it is only Laravel's installer and not a Laravel project which should be created in a later step (see below) and this should be installed in your /var/html/www then.

Run the following command in your /var/html/www to create a new project (doesn't need Laravel installer):

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel YourProjectName 5.2

or use the Laravel installer

laravel new YourProjectName

For more info how to install Laravel see the documentation here.