Extreme newbie login loop and startup questions

General Help
#1

Working with geary I tried to delete some messages and nothing happened. Trying a cleanup the db files was marked read-only. I tried a M$ ploy and restarted, and there I was in the login loop. Using the fixes in Swarfendor437’s invaluable manual I finally managed to clean up and all’s well. I tried so many solutions I’ve forgotten which one worked. Some idiot questions:

  1. In some of the commands, what do I put in place of [code]?
    2.How do I boot into advanced recovery mode? I’ve tried ctl-alt-F3 but to no avail.

Many thanks

#2
  1. Can you give an example of the commands?
  2. Hold Shift key or stab Esc key: [SOLVED] Black screen after install
#3
#4

How do you get into Advanced | Safe mode? Sorry, I am a babe here.

John

#5

I’ve tried booting with:
Esc
Del
Left shift
ctl-alt-F3

Can’t get a boot menu.

John

#6

Hold the left shift key down whilst you power on, also try stabbing the left shift key during boot and you “should” get GRUB - only then can you access the advanced menu.
Have you tried this?:

#7

Thanks for the info. I got into the (an?) advanced page by hitting ctl-alt-F3 once the display stopped to the login page. If I get into GRUB, what do I do next, please? (Told you I am a total newbie!)

Thanks

#8

Do you see something like:

zorin@zorin $ login:

At this point you enter your username you setup to login with, then it will change to:

password:

Enter your original password.

Then as per the article:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

reboot