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
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (4x8GB) PC4-25600 (DDR4-3200) Memory RAM
$79.89
NEW OLOy 16GB 2x8GB KIT DDR4-3000 PC4-24000 Desktop Gaming RAM MD4U0830160BB1ST
$19.99
Crucial 8GB 1x8GB PC RAM PC3L 12800U DDR3 1600MHz Desktop Memory DIMM
$8.36
A-Tech 8GB DDR3 1600 PC3-12800 Laptop SODIMM 204-Pin Memory RAM PC3L DDR3L 1x 8G
$13.99
Team Group Elite+ 16GB (8GBx2) DDR4 2400MHz RAM (TPRD48G2400HC16BK)
$23.99
Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32GB (2 x 16GB) PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Memory
$54.99
Micron 16GB DDR4-2400 SODIMM MTA16ATF2G64HZ-2G3E1 Laptop Memory RAM
$21.99
Crucial DDR3L 16GB 1600 2x 8GB PC3-12800 Laptop SODIMM Memory RAM PC3 16G DDR3
$22.45
128GB Kit 4x 32GB PC4-17000 LRDIMM DELL POWEREDGE R730xd R730 R630 Memory RAM
$127.96
Dell SNPTP9W1C/16G 16 GB 2666MHz (PC4-2666) Memory Ram
$34.95