Ok... Let's repeat the process slightly, but then take a different path.
This is if there are broken Packages causing the problem:
Hold Left shift key during boot- when you get to the menu, select Advanced Options
Then Recovery...
This will bring up a recovery menu.
From there, tab down to the Networking option and follow that to enable networking. Back out to the Recovery Menu, tab down to Drop to Prompt and select that.
Hit ctrl+d or Enter to start the prompt.
In the prompt enter
dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt remove --purge lightdm
sudo apt install lightdm -y
Follow the Prompts, then
sudo apt remove --purge gdm3
If this fails
This is for Boot Repair:
You may need to repair Grub. Follow this tutorial here to repair grub, then reboot the computer to ensure that it worked:
That is not something I expected at all… Lightdm is working, you see your normal login screen after the Zorin Logo and it does not accept your password?
Grub should be fine and not in need f repair if the blinking cursor is gone and you were able to boot to Lightdm.
The login screen I see is black and says Zorin OS 15.3 (name of my computer) ttyl
(Name of my computer) login:
No matter what I put in the login and hit enter I can’t type anything when "Password: " appears.
Edit: ok I had to put in the password without anything showing up on screen.
So next it tells me I can upgrade 8 packages and to run apt list --upgradable, also I get a line saying -bash: cannot create tempfile for here-document: No space left on device.
After I run the upgradable list I’m not sure what to do next
Incase there is any confusion when entering the password, I wanted to speak on my experience. If I am in Zorin OS, and I switch to terminal mode, it will ask me for my credentials for security reasons. When I enter my password, terminal gives me no visual feedback, but my password is being entered. And as long as I don’t misstype it, after entering, it accepts the password. Might be the same thing happening for you.
I made sure not to have any other media (USB or SD card) plugged in before doing any of this.
After running the upgrade the message I get is
"E: You don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/."
Then just the terminal prompt.
Thanks for all your help today, I think I'm going to take a break from this and start again tomorrow.
Carmar spotted this, which I failed to notice, from the O.P.:
Sadly, that is probably not enough.
Even so, in running everything, your computer crashed... Which upon checking, we are getting an error twice
-bash: cannot create tempfile for here-document: No space left on device.
E: You don’t have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/
Thanks Carmar for spotting what I missed and shame on me (My brain read 300Gigs)...
I think that it is clear that your drive is not large enough, even for Zorin OS.
Back in the Zorin OS 9 and 12 days, you could get away with 16GB to 30GB. But I think you really need 60GB for OS 15. You can get a 128GB drive for less then 50 bucks these days so ya.
So I think part of my problem is that after installing I still had ~17 GB of space left on the SSD and accidentally filled it with downloads, I wasn't able to download directly to my SD card or external HD and when I moved them in the file explorer I trashed then from the SSD but didn't empty the trash.
The Zorin download page says
Zorin OS Lite needs at least
CPU
700 MHz Single Core – Intel/AMD 64-bit or 32-bit processor
RAM
512 MB
Storage
8 GB
Display
640 × 480 resolution
So I don't know why it should need 60 GB as @StarTreker said.
Is there a way to reformat my drive to delete all the data and reinstall Zorin lite or should I just give up and try to download another copy of windows 10 to reinstall (these netbooks don't come with disk drives so no reinstall disk) ?
Those minimum specs listed look very Bare Minimum, to me. uhh...
8 gigs storage?
You can install and run Zorin OS lite and do light web browsing on that. But it running and you using it may be different things. StarTrekker stated a size for comfortable running. When I install a new copy of Zorin Lite, I then also install applications that I use that do not come with Lite. By the time I have finished, I am usually at 10 gigs or a little over.
And this does not even cover files that build up over time. From photos to downloads to system logs.
If you have an external drive- then you can use that as storage, such as setting all downloads to go automatically to the external drive instead of ~/Downloads.
You will also want to be diligent with maintenance, running "sudo apt clean" and "sudo apt autoremove" pretty often, as well as clearing out System Logs more often than the average user.
Oh yes, you can reinstall Zorin Lite, no problem. But, if Zorin Lite is a little heavy at those specs, I would certainly not consider Windows as an alternative. A better option may be a Tiny Linux. Here is a list including SliTaz, Puppy, Bodhi, Porteus and others.
Thank you Aravisian, that was exactly my point. Anytime you look at a minimum spec, that is telling you what you need, to run something, at its bare minimum.
However, if you intend on really using the OS for installing apps, downloading, multi-media experience, your going to need storage capacity to do so, 60GB I feel is a very comfortable size for basic usage of an OS.
See, I would have actually said 64gigs. LOL. These are estimations based on our experiences.
I run Cad and Blender and stuff... I mean... My needs will be more demanding than a user that runs the OS just to browse the web Chrome-book style. So, there is variation.
Minimum Specs assume Minimum usage.
And let me extend that point further. If you are a gamer, in modern day, your going to want at least a 1TB storage capacity. And if you are doing heavy production work, your going to want at least 4TB of storage or more.
This is why everybodies storage needs are different, because it all depends on what we are going to do. Basic minimum should be 60GB, or ok fine, 64GB lol.
I don't install a bunch of stuff. My typical home partition is 30 GB used. My root is typically 15 GB used but I don't dare keep that smaller than 30 GB. And I'm not even counting swap. So, fwiw, I agree with ST's 60 GB minimum suggestion, excluding swap. For 2 GB RAM, you should go with 2 x 2 GB = 4 GB swap. Which comes to the 64 GB minimum Aravisian recommended.
Ok thanks for the clarification, I do basically use this computer primarily to download media to my external hard drive so I'll try reinstalling Zorin from the USB stick and if that doesn't work I'll try one of the smaller OS' you recommended.
