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
GENUINE CISCO QSFP-40/100-SRBD 100G QSFP Transceiver
$129.99
Cisco WAP371 IEEE 802.11ac 1.27 Gbit/s Wireless Access Point
$80.00
Cisco SG110 24 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch w/ 2 x SFP SG110-24
$117.00
GENUINE CISCO DS-SFP-FC32G-SW SFP NEW SEALED SEE PHOTOS SHIPS FREE
$74.99
Cisco WS-C3850-48P-L 48-Port Gigabit 3850 PoE Switch w/ 715W+ C3850-NM-4-1G Mod
$79.00
Cisco Nexus N3K-C3048TP-1GE 48 Port Switch w/ Dual Power - Same Day Shipping
$85.99
Genuine Cisco SFP-10G-SR V03 10GBASE-SR SFP+ Transceiver Module 10-2415-03
$8.00
Cisco WS-C3750X-48T-S 48 Port 3750X Gigabit Switch - Same Day Shipping
$49.95
Cisco C9300-48U-A 48-Port Gig UPoE Network Advantage Switch -Same Day Shipping
$859.95
Cisco Nexus N3K-C3172PQ-XL 48P 10GbE SFP+ 4P QSFP+ Switch N3K-C3172PQ-XL-F
$229.00