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 Computer, Memorex Storage Unit For Main Frame Computer 1986, Movie Prop
$995.00
Vintage Mainframe Computer Punch Cards 5081 New Old Stock 80 Column Set of 50
$9.99
Vintage Rare Sycor Computer Corp. 4412 Data Entry Station from 1976
$1900.00
Vintage IBM System 370 Mainframe MST Backplane populated with 16 SLT/MST cards
$299.95
1 x NOS Vintage Burrougs 4 Tube Mainframe Nixie Assembly - P/N BEZ-59-4
$50.00
10pcs IBM 5081 Punch Cards Mainframe - NASA- Huntsville
$9.99
2x Various Brands 10.5" Mainframe 9-Track Reel Computer Data Tape 6250 CPI .5"
$7.99
IBM Mechanical Keyboard Model M 1391401 Mainframe Collection USA 1984 NO CABLE
$75.00
AlphaServer AlphaStation DS25 54-30466-31 CPU Board 1Ghz KN410-CA
$350.00
HP Compaq AlphaServer DS20e CPU 54-30060-01 KN311 667Mhz 5030059-01 54-30060-04
$599.00