True but version check is faster- not installed anyway
If you want to browse through your older installed packages and remember which one may have been installed just before: https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/01/how-to-show-history-of-installed.html
Great!
I will look at that soon and delete each one in turn.
Nothing to lose.
But people, I just noticed something a little odd in reboot and restart.
Usually, at startup the ACER brand splash screen pops up then the grey blank screen with a border then the Zorin logo then the log in.
But now, the acer splash starts, screen goes blank, acer splash pops back, zorin loggo appears up, acer splash revisits and finally the spinner prior to ubuntu log in.
It is as if something else is trying to load but gets over written? Irrelevant I know, but any change in a machine is unusual, they donât do it just for a giggle.
I would have thought that would have been also taken care of by @Aravisian first post since that should be a plymouth issue.
Then again you write that it goes back and forth. I donât know.
Oh shoot!
There are billions of em!
Is this relevant?
I don't fully understand and don't want to type screeds of code unless it is useful
I just spent WAAAY too much time solving this issue. What finally solved the issue was replacing the /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so.7 library with a link to /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libreadline.so.7
sudo mv /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so.7 /usr/local/lib/back.libreadline.so.7
sudo mv /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so /usr/local/lib/back.libreadline.so
sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libreadline.so.7 /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so.7
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so.7 /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so
A good indication that there was a problem was that gawk did not work because of the same missing external in libreadline with:
$ gawk
gawk: symbol lookup error: /usr/local/lib/libreadline.so.7: undefined symbol: UP
My ~/.Xauthority was fine, no amounts of updates made any difference. Right after my upgrade from to Ubuntu 18.04.1, my system would stop booting in the middle somewhere. I switched to lightdm from gdm3 with
Blockquote
Quite correct, when I changed the them from 0 to 1, the only change was cosmetic, the Zorin dotted background behind the Ubuntu mauve dingo disappeared and a spinner presented.
When I changed it to #2 the standard Ubuntu login countdown 5 dots appeared, then the login. But still looped. I may try other themes to see if anything REAL changes.
I can only repeat so that you do not repeat yourself spinning in circles... The theme is not the issue. When you installed Ubuntu Desktop, it replaced your system theme with its system theme. When you removed Ubuntu Desktop, it probably took a part of your system desktop environment with it. What you really need... Is a Removal Log.
What we know: Nautilus and Plymouth are present and at least a portion of Zorin Desktop is present. We know GDM3 and LightDM have been present when it mattered.
You could try reinstalling Ubuntu-Desktop in order to see if it installs whatever it took with it on that last removal, followed immediately after with
sudo apt full-upgrade
Full-upgrade, not dist-upgrade.
Then remove only the portions of Ubuntu you want gone, change the Plymouth theme back and so on.
If that fails, I really think Reinstalling the OS is the way to go. Because even if you get it working, will you have the confidence that All is Well and it won't fail you at a critical moment later?
Largely agree, esp with your tech analysis and themes but I wanted to eliminate them as @carmarâs comment raised a small doubt in my mind.
Will try your final suggestion, but yes, once I have it working I can depend on it. It is a machine so when everything is checked and verified it will perform as usual.
Grab your mask and go for a walk!
Cheers
Ah, but what to check and verify? 
In theory once I gain access I can then go back and check everything that happened since Monday night. Or reset back to that date.
There is only a very small window for error.
Like you, I am convinced there is something missing from the Zorin desktop and Ubuntu is crashing with it.
However, I am not convinced of the DT theory perse.
This error happened before i installed or deleted ubuntu desk top.
Installing removing or reinstalling same has no effect, either technically nor cosmetically.
It has to do with something that happened directly after trying the PPA, but I canât remember clearly.
The link and GREP that @carmar provided was useful but sadly, the output runs over many lines and I can not access the first actions.
That is my focus now, trying to locate or recall what I did after Monday and work from there.
Just as another straw, do you use screen reader?
I found it still works but the bloke is speaking German.
Logically, if the language has been changed then the PW would not work in command mode. But is there a way to check language in tty?
In your tty run
locale
to check lang settings.
You can check your keyboard lang layout with
/etc/default/keyboard
You can change terminal Scrollback to a larger size, but I am not sure how to do it in tty. I just tried searching and you know how that goes- I will keep looking. Either way, it may not help you NOW... I wonder if you can nano your home ~.bash_history to see what commands you have entered.
Sorry mate, I wasn't clear.
I meant the TTY loads several frames of data from GREP and stops at the last current, which was reinstall ubuntu desktop.
I want the ones I did last Monday, but I can not access them.
I will check the language, but not hopeful. Like you I am searching, surfing, reading...........
I think this is what I am trying to so but don't understand - you how do I NANO?
Thanks again for your help go and get some fresh air!
No point in both of us working on this, I will let you know when I have a breakthrough, or breakdown!
I am sitting here making a new Icon set theme (For Prowler Theme), so I would be here anyway.
nano or vim- terminal cli text editor.
For example
sudo nano /home/USER$/.bash_history
Yes, I was referring to the terminal scrollback- which should be the same thing in tty. TTY is TeleTYpe or... Terminal.
Scrollback and scrollback size refers to how far back the print goes. So let's say y ou run a sudo apt update command and your scrollback is set to 5 or five lines. You will only see the last five lines of that print or output.
Last I recall, I had set my scrollback to 5000 
OH!
Silly me. 
I thought you were referring to font size, I was thinking that would be good, better than the size 4 font this thing has. Ok, I will try that, set to 5 lines at first.
See ya next year!
No, donât set it to five. What? Are you eyeballing the webcam too much? That was just a simplistic example.
But changing the scrollback now would probably do you little good as the commands that you want to access were run prior to changing the scrollback size.
This is why I suggested trying to access your bash history, as seeing what commands you entered may help, even if you cannot see their direct results from Monday.
I know, but I only want a few lines at a time!
I am betting the offence was committed in the first dozen lines .
But if the line count is only active after activating- makes sense- it is useless. I can't use the bash command as this keyboard does not have an underscore key. I lost that during our last long fault conversation.
Give a a few more minutes
When I turn the machine on there is a momentary 2 line message that flashes up for a nano second. I can only see it clearly in the dark which has its own set of limitations and frustrations.
But I think this is the output.
"Zorin bootloader not found, initialising defaults. Creating boot entry âboot002â with label âubuntuâ for file âubuntu shimx64 efiâ
I think this is from my Bios?
To read that I had to press cnt alt delete about 500 times, during which I found I can access the âRecovery menuâ
When checking repair broken files I am confronted with a list of no candidates:
linux image 5.4.0-56 generic
also linux modules and modules extra with the same numerical designation.
Important?
1 Like
Try boot repair?
Thx, maybe half a step ahead of you.
I had already tried using the live flash but could not work out how to get boot repair to work on my main drive. It only checked the demo.
I could not find anything about setting it via tty, so tried anyway, seems I canât.
I also learnt that by pressing the up or down arrow keys we can go back through the last of actions in the TTY, actually, from terminal but sort of same thing.
Anyway, seems there were only a few actions prior to crash, most around the PPA and a couple of others which I donât seem to be able to reverse or delete. I am still learning.
I Installed a new linux image but it is an older one, I tried being specfic in the version but it failed.
My very vague memory of last time good was when I was trying to open a TAR with terminal, and to CD from the tar to a folder, if you understand, basically, decompress I guess. It crashed around that time. I donât remember exactly but had something to do with xzvf and MAKE.