[gold_finger]

I'm about as stumped as you unfortunately.  Don't see anything in specs to indicate you should be having problems.  Looks like you've got Mint 18 Mate on that computer now, not 17.3, but that doesn't matter.  You got it installed before, so makes no sense that nothing works now.  Very strange!


Computer just using open source AMD driver for graphics in Mint Mate 18 and I'm assuming everything works fine with it, correct?  So graphics doesn't appear to be cause of problem either.


Don't see anything wrong with current UEFI/Bios settings.


Grasping at straws now.  Don't know exact procedure you've been following to boot the USBs, but if you've just been relying on boot order setting in main UEFI Settings Menu (accessed through <F2> key during startup), maybe try booting with the per-session Boot Menu instead.  Looked-up info on your computer.  Appears you can invoke per-session boot menu with the <F12> key, then choose USB there.  Another method is to use the "Novo" button, then choose "Boot Menu" and pick USB there.



If still no luck, maybe look on Lenovo site for UEFI/Bios update.  Maybe there is some kind of glitch in old one on machine now (Bios: LENOVO v: A1CN24WW(V1.12) date: 10/17/2014).

[smhardesty]

I'm as stumped as you are, gold_finger. Yes, I have tried all 3 methods of booting the laptop up. I thought maybe that was the hiccup too so went through the regular boot menu, the per session, and the Novo button. Not a bit of difference with any method.

Yes, I do have Mint 18.1 installed now. That's what I was explaining a few posts back. I had the thing in a real mess just a bit ago. I decided to try installing LXDE on it via the apt install command. For whatever reason LXDE wasn't showing up in the login screen as an option, so I installed LXDM to use instead of LightDM. It wouldn't work at all. I was suddenly faced with command line interface instead of that pleasant splash screen type login. So had to login, then startx. LXDE ran, but I couldn't get any Dm to load a GUI splash login. Finally managed to edit the right .conf files to get an autologin under her name. What a danged mess.

So it's running Mint 18.1 with LXDE right now. It's way too slow. Takes way too long to load up any app, and Firefox is a real joke now. I have info.com set as home page and it takes about 15 seconds for that page to load when you launch Firefox. I've really got to figure out how in the heck to get something to boot on it so I can wipe the hard drive and start fresh. I'm seriously considering  removing the optical drive from this laptop and temporarily installing it on her laptop. At least I'd be able to boot to a DVD and get Linux Lite installed on it.

I'm sure open to any and all suggestions. I think my next move will be to locate a forum for Lenovo laptops and do some searching on it. If I can't find a solution I guess I can start the whole conversation on that forum.

[smhardesty]

DANG! When it rains it pours. I found the Lenovo Forum and searched it for a little while looking for my problem. Didn't find anything remotely close so decided to sign up and post my problem for all to see. The sign up included a 'captcha' to weed out robots. I tried 7 times to enter the text that was shown. I entered it EXACTLY as shown and it kept telling me I had entered the wrong words. I even had the wife look over my shoulder and she agreed I had entered it correctly. Still not able to sign up. I guess I'll forget that forum and try looking elsewhere. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards just putting my optical drive in her laptop and doing the install from DVD. If I can at least get that done I'll go ahead and just order a new optical drive for that laptop and leave it in there. What a mess!

[gold_finger]

Maybe you should try removing hard drive from wife's laptop and do the install to it from a different computer.  Then put drive back in and hopefully the installed system doesn't have same problem as live USB.  You could temporarily install drive to your laptop, do the install, take out and put back into hers.  Or, if you have an external enclosure or USB-to-SATA connector you could just connect it externally to your computer and direct installation there.  (Just make sure you use the "Something Else" manual install method so you can tell grub boot loader to install to that externally connected drive rather than its default, which would be your internal drive.)

So it's running Mint 18.1 with LXDE right now. It's way too slow. Takes way too long to load up any app, and Firefox is a real joke now. I have info.com set as home page and it takes about 15 seconds for that page to load when you launch Firefox.

Not sure what might be causing general sluggishness in Mint Mate.  I've got Mint 18 and 18.1 Xfce versions installed on a few systems (all older than yours) and it seems to be fine -- not noticeably slower than prior versions I've used.


Generally speaking, I've also gotten a bit fed-up with Firefox in recent years.  I was a loyal Firefox user since the very beginning, (and Netscape before that).  It's definitely gotten too bloated and slow.  (But not 15 seconds to load a page slow.)  About a year ago I finally had enough and have been using the Vivaldi browser instead as my main browser.  Have Firefox (and others) installed as back-up and for special uses here and there, but 95% of the time I use Vivaldi.

DANG! When it rains it pours. I found the Lenovo Forum and searched it for a little while looking for my problem. Didn't find anything remotely close so decided to sign up and post my problem for all to see. The sign up included a 'captcha' to weed out robots. I tried 7 times to enter the text that was shown. I entered it EXACTLY as shown and it kept telling me I had entered the wrong words.

If you've got cookies disabled in browser, try enabling them (temporarily, or for that site) and try again.

[smhardesty]

Hot Damn and HooRay! I'm sitting here watching Linux Lite being installed on that laptop from Hell. I finally gave up trying to get the USB stick to work and took my G50 apart to get the optical drive. It's really not the correct size for the B50. It's about an inch short. BUT,,, it did plug in just fine and was recognized in the BIOS so I managed to get the door open and get the Lite DVD in it. Booted to it with no problems. Install is about done so I'm about to get busy with updates and tweaks. Then I'll put the drive back in my laptop and be done with computers for the day. Thanks a lo for hanging with me on this, gold_finger. Maybe one day one of us will figure out what this problem was.

[gold_finger]

Excellent!


Report back after all is done and let us know how system is working.  If all good, go ahead and mark this as solved.

[smhardesty]

My, my, my! I can't believe how fast and responsive Lite is! It's like I swapped that B50 laptop in for a newer, bigger, faster machine. I'm not completely done tweaking and setting it up yet, but I have done all the updates and tweaked the appearance a little. About all I have left to do is set up my wireless printer, then remove all the apps/packages the wife doesn't need/want, and then set a system restore and do a 100% backup. Then if anything happens I'll just set it back to the fresh install point.

For any of you that are just reading through the forum and haven't made the decision to install Lite yet, just go for it. You will NOT be sorry. This is a really responsive distribution. It feels rock solid no matter what I've tried doing with it. It's one step above a standard XFCE install too. It's just completely and totally configurable and it includes packages well above and beyond a plain vanilla XFCE install. And yet with all the extras added in, it has to be the fastest and most responsive XFCE distribution I've tried.

If I wasn't already tired for the day I'd be installing it on my G50 or on my desktop right now. Everything in my house will be running Lite in the next 2 or 3 days. Love it!

[gold_finger]

This USB boot problem is bugging me.  Did some more searching and found possible solution.  If you have time try the following:


Make USB with either dd command or UnetBootin.


Boot computer with it.


When screen comes up showing list of boot choices, highlight first choice (Default) and hit the <TAB> key to add boot options.


Move cursor to between "quiet splash" and "--".  Type in (without the quotes) "live-media=/dev/sdb1".  Make sure there is a space between that and "quiet splash" and "--" after it at the end.  Should look like this at end of line when done:

Code:

quiet splash live-media=/dev/sdb1 --

Hit <Enter> when done and hopefully it boots properly now.

[smhardesty]

I just finished trying that gold_finger. Didn't work. All I could see that was different was that I received several read errors BEFORE hitting the yellow splash screen with the feather, then got the splash screen, then back to command line to receive the same errors as before. It ended with the usual "unable to enumerate,,," error that I had been getting.

I have also been emailing with 2 friends and both of them are as stumped as we are. All of us have experienced not getting the USB stick seen at all, but none of us have ever had it seen, then disappear during boot. Somebody somewhere knows how to fix this. It's just a matter of one of use being on the right forum, or at the right place, to find whoever it is that knows the solution.

I think I should leave this unsolved, even though I managed to get Lite installed. If anybody searches for the phrase I have in the Subject and the thread is marked "Solved", they'd be kind of peeved to find out that I solved it by sticking an optical drive in the laptop. I got an email this morning from a friend that said he had an external USB optical drive he'd let me have to use on that laptop. That's fine and dandy, and I really appreciate getting it, but it sure doesn't solve the actual problem.

I am giving you a big Thank You for sticking with this like you have. Over the years I have belonged to a lot of online forums and it's unusual to find somebody on a tech forum like this that offers as much assistance as you have. Kudos to you, and to the forum.

Oh, let me know what you think I should do about marking as Solved or not.

[gold_finger]

Uugh!


I had high hopes for that -- oh well.


I guess you could try one more startup parameter that I ran across, but doubt result will be any different.  Instead of "live-media=/dev/sdb1", use "ignore_uuid":

Code:

quiet splash ignore-uuid --

I'm fresh out of ideas.  If I run across solution anywhere, will post back.

I think I should leave this unsolved, even though I managed to get Lite installed. If anybody searches for the phrase I have in the Subject and the thread is marked "Solved", they'd be kind of peeved to find out that I solved it by sticking an optical drive in the laptop.

Yes, on second thought you're probably right.  Leave it unsolved, or you could mark it partially solved if you want.  Just go to first post in the thread, hit the "Modify" button, then add <SOLVED -- Partially> or <SOLVED -- Sort of> to the Subject line.