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
Kingston HyperX FURY DDR3 8GB 16GB 32G 1600 1866 1333 Desktop Memory RAM DIMM
$39.95
A-Tech 8GB DDR3 1600 PC3-12800 Laptop SODIMM 204-Pin Memory RAM PC3L DDR3L 1x 8G
$13.99
Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel
$33.99
HP 15.6" FHD Notebook AMD Ryzen 5 5500U 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Natural Silver
$339.99
HyperX FURY DDR3 8GB 16GB 32GB 1600 MHz PC3-12800 Desktop RAM Memory DIMM 240pin
$15.90
Samsung 16GB (4x4GB) 1Rx8 PC3-12800U 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM Memory M378B5273DH0-CK0
$14.00
Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32GB (2 x 16GB) PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Memory
$54.99
Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) XMP
$34.99
128GB (8x 16GB) 10600R RAM Memory For Dell Poweredge R510 R610 R620 R710 R720
$66.49
HyperX FURY RAM DDR4 16GB 8GB 32GB 4GB 3200 2666 2400 2133 Desktop Memory DIMM
$35.75