[CLOSED] zorin 6 update trouble

Hi members, I have recently formatted my desktop PC from Win 10 and installed Zorin 6.l.
My hardware is an Acer all in one unit, 980gig HD, 4 gig ram, AMD A6 3600 APU with Radeon HD Graphics, 32 bit Zorin 6 with (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS)
My problem is whenever I try to do a OS up date to say Ubuntu 14, or Zorin 7,8,9,11 or 12 clean install all I get at the end of the installations are empty desktop screens for the respective OS systems, but nothing else...no desktop icons ...nothing but an empty screen that does not react to any mouse instructions.
I can tell that the installations have taken place because the system says reboot... when I do it ends up with the same blank desktop image.
I then reinstall zorin 6 and that works fine....
Can anyone help please!

HI, in Zorin 6 can you pleas launch GParted, take a screenshot, save it as a .jpg from within screenshot - just rename the suggested picture from .png to .jpg before saving.

Hi Swarfendor437, please find attached screen shot as requested. Regards

OK, Let's get back to basics and do a fresh install - you will have everything (including your home folder) inside of '/' - not a good idea, cos if your system crashes you will have lost all your data, so the first thing to do is backup your data then update to 9 or 12 - (Zorin 6 expires April 2017 in terms of support).

1. Boot with the media you have Zorin 6 on and boot into live mode - when you get the options at boot time, check the locale (F2)(I think anything earlier than 12 HAS to be English - you add your locale of it after install), and check the Keyboard Language layout is correct (F3).

2. Once in live mode, click on the desktop icon, Install to Hard Drive. Once the process starts go through the various screens remembering:
a. rename your machine to one word - hyphenated computer names are just as problematical in GNU/Linux as they are in Windows.
b. DON'T attempt to 'Encrypt /home folder' during installation.

3. When it comes to installation choices, choose the last one on the list - 'Something Else'

4. Gparted (Gnome Partition Editor) launches. (I am assuming at this point you have backed up all your critical data which should include configuration files for your apps etc in your home directory - these are hidden and you should press Ctrl+ H to see them in order to back them up to an external medium/other hard drive.)

a. Remove all partitions so the drive is clean - you will need to remove that swap area in the extended partition before you can remove the extended partition itself. Also remove '/' - again AFTER you have backed everything up that you need to!!

b. Create a new primary partition at the 'start' (left) of the drive of '30720 Mib' = 30 Gb - mark it as '/' formatted to 'ext4'

c. Create an extended partition and at the END of this you next create the 'swap area' and it should be '4096 Mib' - 4 Gb.

d. Everything to the left of the swap area inside the extended partition should be formatted to 'ext4' and marked as '/home'.

e. Ensure that GRUB is in the correct place, i.e., at the start of 'sda' - not '/', not '/home'.

f. Now go ahead and install Zorin.

Post Install - read Wolfman's excellent Post Installation Guide to ensure that your system is completely up-to-date:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9785

Before considering reinstalling 6 please read this:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9267

If memory serves me correctly - 6 is vulnerable so I would definitely be looking at 9 at the very least.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/zorin-os/files/9/

Hi Swarfender437, many thanks for your detailed instructions, which I followed exactly, however I still end up with a blank unresponsive desktop when I try and either update or reinstall to a later OS Zorin 9, I have included a photo of the screen taken from my phone as I have no access to my PC functions, is there any hope for me? Thanks

Can you run Zorin in live mode and post back the results of

Code:

lspci

From Terminal?

Please find details as requested.

Hi Swarfendor437, just to let you know I have finally managed to install Zorin 12 on my computer.
I gave up on trying to install via a nice new DVD and settled for a reformatted USB stick and it installed first time!
I would like to thank you sincerely for all the effort and assistance you gave me in my endeavours to make this work.
Many thanks

Way to go John!!! Razes glass in your honer

For the record, I couldn't get my computer to boot off of my Zorin OS 12 installation disk, but to be fair, most recently my Zorin OS 9 installation disk is also not booting the computer either, where as it had before. This is what leads me to believe that my nearly 5 year old DVD Pioneer drive in my notebook just might be failing. It would explain a lot why it doesn't want to read my Memorex disks while in the OS. I have always been able to load via USB however, and I did install Zorin OS 9, and then later OS 12 via USB drive.

Arn't you glad you are so awesome? And just in time for Christmas too hehe

Hi, been busy - was going to look at graphics driver issue which is what your desktop screenshot reminded me of in 9 when recycling computers at work - when booting in live mode and similar results you need to press the E key to edit the boot command and enter any or all of the following after 'quiet boot splash':

Code:

acpi=off nolapic noapic nomodeset xforcevesa

Will mark as [CLOSED]