The problem for me is here speaker_outs=0 but I can be wrong
[ 4.205402] snd_hda_codec_alc269 hdaudioC0D0: ALC256: picked fixup for PCI SSID 17aa:0000
[ 4.205879] snd_hda_codec_alc269 hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig for ALC256: line_outs=1 (0x1b/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[ 4.205882] snd_hda_codec_alc269 hdaudioC0D0: speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[ 4.205883] snd_hda_codec_alc269 hdaudioC0D0: hp_outs=1 (0x21/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
and to be honest I'm used all my cartridges
Ah, see what happens when I jump into a lengthy thread? Thanks for pointing this out.
Hmmm Lenovo (Grumble, growl... Lenovo...) usually uses Intel SOF sound.
I could be wrong about the driver - with that showing visual output being misleading.
What is the terminal output of:
sudo dmesg | grep -i sof
Your are prisoner here now !
I just looked through this amazing thread. I am in awe of @Nourpon resilience! (And the OP's resilience too).
Just a quick thought: did you try booting into a real old kernel, like 6.8?
Hey im back at the PC and im trying to get into the menu to select the versions. Can anyone here explain to me why anybody chose to press esc? Why are we pressing the button that robs you of the possibility to make a selection to get into the menu in the first place. I have like a 1/10th of a second to get into the menu. Frustrating beyond belief. I think that should be the official Linux motto at this point.
Also can someone please explain to me what this screen is? I always land there instead of the selection thing.
Anyhow i managed to get into 6.14.0-35 ONCE in half an hour of button pressing, unfortunately the internet was completely off in that version. Not even the wifi menu was there. So I thought that was not supposed to be so and wanted to restart and reenter that version. However im struggling to get there. ...
Man im getting frustrated. When I connect my phone it shows as empty folder no matter the way i tell it to connect (data transfer, photos whatever), so I cant even upload the screenshots today. Man this is getting on my nerves, eeeeevery little thing is a problem in Linux.
Guys i thank you very much so far but I cant continue to do this. I will nuke this PC, try it one more time and if it doesnt work i will never go back to Linux. Its just not worth it. Better to give away all my data for free at least it works out of the box. I know Im frustrated but I cant keep on losing on my job like this. It has to do the simple stuff or just leave.
Edit: Something is waaaaaaay wrong now. My external SSD that used to work all these days now tells me I dont have the permission to save the Data on my PC. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude whhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy 
You can use that guide to display the grub menu always at boot:
Then you don't need to press a key to display the grub menu. It is much easier then.
I looked at the early parts of the thread and saw mention of ALC256 which can have pin problems. So I used Brave A.I. with problems with ALC256 on Ubuntu 24.04 (on which Zorin 18 is based which came back with the following (which is also mentioned on other forums which also refer to the jackretask software and to select ALC256 from the options):
" For Realtek ALC256 audio issues on Ubuntu 24.04 , the most effective solutions involve correcting pin configurations via hdajackretask or forcing the legacy ALSA driver.
hdajackretaskIf speakers or headphones are not detected or the microphone is silent, the pin mapping is likely incorrect.
sudo apt install alsa-tools-guihdajackretask and select Realtek ALC256 .Ubuntu 24.04 may use the newer SOF (Sound Open Firmware) driver which has known issues with ALC256. Switching to the legacy driver often resolves static or no-sound problems.
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.confoptions snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi
3.Note: If dell-headset-multi does not work, try model=auto or model=alc256 .*
4. Save and exit, then reload ALSA: sudo alsa force-reload or reboot.
Ensure the input/output profiles are set correctly.
sudo apt install pavucontrolpavucontrol and go to the Configuration tab.If these steps fail, check for kernel updates or consider replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire , which has improved hardware compatibility in recent Ubuntu releases.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts."
Regards your final edit paragraph: How is your data partition, that you are trying to save to, formatted? I had an issue way back when I had a data partition that was formatted for windows, exFat if I recall, and the computer was convinced it belonged to "root" not to me/ Nothing I tried would let me change ownership or permissions. I ended up reformatting it to Ext4 and was then able to select "take ownership" from the Gparted right click menu (it was greyed out until I changed the format) and after that everything worked fine.
Thank you for your imput, however from very bad experience I will not use any AI for solutions anymore. It has nuked a couple of my installs in the past:
@NickS: I cannot say for certain anymore, but I presume it wasExt4. The drive was working, I copied my relevant folders to it when I first set the PC up and used it to transfer files. But after switching the versions and also messing in the Terminal it now is not working anymore. Doesnt matter, on the weekend ill wipe the whole PC and set it up with windows probably. If I decide to once more try to make Linux work for me (this must be attempt 6 or so by now) and the issue persists, ill come back to this threat. Otherwise ill wait a couple of years till ill try Linux again. What a shame.
I saw a post somewhere on the grub menu if for some reason you over shoot and get grub with a blinking cursor you type normal hit return and it returns to selection screen...hope that helps others in future
Take a look here:
today there was an update of firmware-sof-signed, did you update your computer ?
Hey thanks for the video, unfortunately I need help to do that. Also I am veeeeeeeeeery wary to do these thing, dont really want to have this install nuked at this point.
Anyhow some of the commands dont work (any more?) and I dont know how to adapt them to make them work.
The first one already failed:
I typed this into the terminal:
sudo mv /lib/firmware/intel/sof* ~/Desktop/old-sof-backup
And got this result:
mv: cannot stat '/lib/firmware/intel/sof*': No such file or directory
Same with this command:
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/sof-* ~/Desktop/old-sof-backup
Then I donwloaded the newest version (2025.12.2) and typed in this command:
sudo rsync -a sof*v2025.12.2 /lib/firmware/intel/
And got this reply:
rsync: [sender] link_stat "/home/electricsunrise/sof*v2025.12.2" failed: No such file or directory (2)
And gave up. Im willing to give this a try but I dont know what im doing and I dont know what to change.
Thanks for the tip and help!
Yes I ran the updater just now. Let me restart and see if there is a difference.
EDIT: New observation: Whenever I start my PC, I need to go to the Pulse audio System and deselect and then select again the "analog stereo duplex" for the bluetooth speaker to work. However no sound from the inbuilt speakers.