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 Logitech 804292-0000 Trackball Marble Mouse T-CM14 Retro PS/2 Connector
$19.99
NEW Manufacture OLD STYLE Oval 3 Prong Power Cord HP style 125V 7A 875W Vintage
$39.95
IBM MO09BO USB PC Mouse - Tested Working Vintage
$9.95
12pcs VINTAGE MAINFRAME COMPUTER PUNCH CARDS. IBM 80-unknown Origin 70-80s
$9.95
Vintage Toshiba satellite A45-S150 laptop **IT DOES NOT INLUDE A CHARGER**
$99.00
Vintage Commodore MPS 802 Dot Matrix Printer
$50.00
Vintage Dot Matrix Printer Contin Feed Paper 8.5 x 11. Lots of 5 to 250 sheets.
$4.00
Vintage Epson RX-80 P80RA Dot Matrix Printer - Powers On
$79.99
Vintage Dell OptiPlex GX280 Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.0GHz 1GB RAM 40 GB HDD No OS
$99.99
Vintage Acer Travelmate C310 Laptop Intel Pentium M 1.73GHz NO RAM NO HDD
$74.34