I have had terrible trouble with 7.4.2 and 8.1.0 on a Dell XPS9360. Whether booting from the KNOPPIX DVD (burn iso) or from a boot USB (I use Pendrive's Universal-USB-Installer v. 1.9.8.0, there may be other or later versions) all I got was a blank screen. But a certain amount of whirring suggested to me that the live version was in fact progressing and available. After a lot of messing about with vga=xxx in the KERNEL stanza in /boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg I iterated to the best, sparsest and most portable version of this configuration file that I have EVER had. It reads
DEFAULT console
TIMEOUT 40
PROMPT 1
LABEL console
KERNEL linux
APPEND initrd=minirt.gz vga=893 lang=uk 1
LABEL video
KERNEL linux
APPEND initrd=minirt.gz vga=893 lang=uk #
By portable I mean this works on an ancient (really ancient) Samsung, any number of Dells in all configurations / ages, likewise Fujitsus. All screens from 800x600 to 1920x1080.
Still can't get 8.1.0 to work using a boot USB (DVD is fine). The architecture dictated by Pendrive leads to a configuration location error ("Can't find ..") from the very start. Even mimicking the geography of the 7.4.2 boot USB does not mend this.
Fergus
Vintage Apple lle PCB Replica with Some Chips
$39.95
NEW Manufacture OLD STYLE Oval 3 Prong Power Cord HP style 125V 7A 875W Vintage
$39.95
Vintage HP Laptop Pavilion zd8000 - Works Great
$95.00
Vintage Adaptec AHA-1510 S100 ISA SCSI Controller Card
$14.50
Vintage Apple ll and IIe PCB Replicas Bare Boards
$49.95
Vintage Apple lle PCB Replica missing some chips
$49.95
Vintage Apple lle PCB Replica No chips
$29.95
Pl06 Notebook Battery For HP Vintage
$5.99
Vintage Dolch Computer PAC 64 RJ11 Keyboard Cherry MX Blue Switch Untested
$149.99
Vintage Lot Digital Equipment Corporation DEC Documentation Dump Files Etc
$39.99