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
Cisco Catalyst C9300-24UX-A 24 Port 10G/mGig UPOE Network Switch, no module
$349.97
Cisco Nexus N9K-C92160YC-X 48P 25GbE SFP28 6P QSFP+/QSFP28 PE Switch
$475.00
Cisco Nexus 9300 48-Port 25GbE SFP 6x100GbE QSFP Switch P/N: N9K-C93180YC-EX
$499.99
CISCO DS-SFP-FC64G-SW Sealed Hologram New
$175.00
GENUINE Cisco SFP-10G-SR V03 SFP+ GBIC Transceiver Module 10-2415-03
$6.80
Cisco Nexus N3K-C3064PQ-10GX 48P 10GbE SFP+ 4P QSFP+ Switch (Fair)
$85.00
Cisco C3850-NM-2-10G 2 Port Network Exp.Module for 3850
$30.99
C9300-NM-8X CISCO Catalyst 9300 8 x 10GE Network Module
$235.80
Cisco ASR 901 Aggregation Services Router A901-12C-FT-D
$59.99
Cisco WS-C3850-48P-L 48 Port Gigabit PoE+ Switch - Same day shipping
$105.00