If you are able to boot the computer up at some point, I would strongly recommend you run an anti virus scan using ClamAV or some other Linux based anti virus equivillent.
Many years ago, I tried the torrent downloading scene, and what I got for my trouble, were virus’s, the worst of which, was a boot sector virus that destroyed my hard drive. Of course, that was when i was using Windows.
Hope you can get this fixed.
No. Don’t worry.
Since it is crashing right at the Boot Splash, this suggests a graphics conflict during boot. You have several options available for how to access your default grub file.
Option 1.) Boot as normal but hold down the Left Shift key during boot up to pull up the Grub Menu. Once you see the menu
hit the ‘e’ key. This will open the Editor mode for grub.
This screen should look like:
You see the line that says
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2…496a ro quiet splash
Use your arrow keys to navigate the cursor to the end of “splash” on that line and add “nomodeset”.
So it should then look like
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2…496a ro quiet splash nomodeset
Once done and no typos made:
Hit ctrl+x to start the boot process. You MAY need to try rebooting a couple times. If this does not work, please report your findings.
Thank you for your advice, your first method of accessing the grub file didn’t work, could you please list another way to get to that screen?
If holding Shift didn’t work, can you try tapping Esc repeatedly?
Esc worked but on the line
mine ends in quiet splash $vt_handoff
Should I delete the $vt_handoff and replace it with nomodeset ?
That is odd. Yes, go ahead and replace it. You can change it back if needed.
I replaced $vt_handoff with nomodeset and pressed ctrl x see the Zorin screen then get a black screen with a flashing dash in the top right of the screen and nothing else.
Ok… Let’s repeat the process slightly, but then take a different path.
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
You may need to repair Grub. Follow this tutorial here to repair grub, then reboot the computer to ensure that it worked:
Thank you again for all your help.
So I followed the instructions for broken packages and it brings me to a login screen that doesn’t accept anything in the password prompt.
I’ll try the grub repair next.
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.
Thanks that helped.
This printout usually appears if you are operating from the LiveCD, not from Zorin OS installed on the HDD.
You can run
sudo apt upgrade
But- I want to hold off on further steps until you verify your install and ensure there is no bootable media in any drive.
Ok I ran the
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.
Aravisian, you’re still nowhere near my level of misreading posts. 
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.