On October 15, the version 17.3 locked me out of the system and the only thing on the computer screen was a login prompt... It also said I had to update to Zorin 18... wherein my normal user pw didn't work. Nothing I could figure out would work. I couldnt even install another OS. As such my computer is now useless. Is it a normal thing with Zorin to force a user to update to a newer version where the user has to pay to upgrade. This seems to be counter to the attitude of Linux where updates are not forced... and where a users computer is not totally locked up where there is no choice but to upgrade. With this kind of attitude by Zorin I will not be using Zorin any longer.
There is no part of this that is normal. Many users are still on Zorin OS 15 or Zorin OS 16, including one of our moderators.
I wish you could have taken pictures. There are No Update prompts on Zorin OS that tell the user that they must upgrade Zorin OS to the latest release.
This is a TTY login. I do not see anything there that is stating an Upgrade to Zorin OS 18 is required.
Reaching a TTY Login can occur if there was a critical system error.
My son rebooted the system... and was left with this prompt. This is where the system is at present.
does a critical error say that you must upgrade? Yes I guess it was unfortunate that my son rebooted the machine before thinking to get a picture. But I also witnessed it saying to upgrade the machine. So that is that.
What is the next step you would like to take?
I can address that there are no forced upgrades on Zorin OS. As you are here on this forum, you are surrounded by quite literally thousands of people that use Zorin OS and know that there are no forced upgrades; not in the software, not in the source code.
What most likely happened is that a critical error occurred on the system, resulting in a drop to TTY prompt.
If the Grub menu shows at boot (The screen that asks what operating system to load) you can select Zorin on -kernel, probably 5.15- (Recovery) and use the recovery menu in this thread to see what is wrong.
If it does not show, you can try tapping tab or esc to reveal the grub menu in order to select Recovery Mode.
From there, we can try troubleshooting.
Any details you can provide as to what led up to this can be very helpful.
Could the message you saw be misinterpreted?
The Zorin OS 18 Direct Upgrade path has not even been released, yet.
The message could only be misinterpreted if I were an idiot.
I am trying to install another OS... I dont have time to screw around with this.
So what is the PW for the lockout?
There is no forced upgrade in Zorin OS. It does not exist.
So, what your statement above does is effectively shut down any discourse since - Clearly, you misinterpreted it - but will disallow that being recognized lest it means you are called an idiot.
I do not have the time or the patience for this.
Thread closed.
That is the TTY Username and Password prompt. It is NOT a lockout.
The user account that installed the Operating System should have access.
That was your answer.