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
G5T03 Dell Intel DC S3700 Series 800GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD 0G5T03 SSDSC2BA800G3E
$55.00
005051096 EMC Data Domain 400GB SATA 3Gbps 2.5" Internal SSD 118000078
$335.99
HPGYT DELL 960GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5in Internal SSD 0HPGYT MTFDDAK960TCB
$59.00
### MZ-7KE1T0 Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB 2.5 inch SATA3 SSD ###
$105.00
Patriot P210 128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB 2TB 2.5" SATA 3 6GB/s Internal SSD PC/MAC Lot
$14.99
Netac 1TB 2TB 512GB Internal SSD 2.5'' SATA III 6Gb/s Solid State Drive lot
$13.99
Fanxiang SSD 512GB 1TB 2TB 4TB 2.5'' SSD SATA III Internal Solid State Drive lot
$13.99
Patriot P210 256GB SSD 2.5" SATA III 6GB/s Internal Solid State Drive For PC/MAC
$19.99
500GB SKHynix HFS500G32TND 2.5" SATA SSD Drive Tested Read
$39.99
4 TB SSD SATA III Drive 2.5" Solid State Drive SATAIII 6Gb/s UP to 540MB/s
$149.00