FIRSTLY I AM A COMPUTER ILLITERATE. I've been trying to get LINUX on an old laptop for two mornings now and I am losing my mind.

So my friend Francis Dunnery suggested I try "revamping" an old laptop with LINUX. Great. have my daughters old HP envy she doesn't use, it's got windows 8.1 installed. I've downloaded UBUNTU 12 (thinking going with an older version might be easier?), I've downloaded the universal USB installer 1.9.6.6

My thing is this ..... the stupid HP won't even let my try and boot from USB stick. Opens up in the main profile every time. I've searched far and wide, I've done everything I'm meant to do and STILL can't get the laptop to fire the USB.

I restart in F10. I change the start up options, I changed the LEGACY OPTION. Still no luck.

CAN ANYONE HELP? Please. Surely someone out there has suffered the same fate. This isn't the only HP ENVY M6 sleekbook

How did you create the usb stick?

Also, any reason for going with 12.04? I know it's still supported, but it's not for much longer. I definitely would go with 16.04 LTS if it were me.

Hello and welcome to the forum

I can try.

Did you disable "secure boot?" Also, you might want to try Lubuntu 16.04 instead of Ubuntu, it's designed for older systems, although you'll want at least 2 GB's of memory.

Regards...

I followed the instructions on linuxnewbieguide.org

http://linuxnewbieguide.org/?page_id=76

The pendrivelinux.com download.



I've then gone to

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/201...e-windows.html

I CAN'T GET TO STAGE 5 ! To install the LINUX FROM MY USB stick.
It's very very frustrating.

I've gone with UBUNTU because it's meant to be most MACLIKE, yeah? I THINK I've disable my secure boot. I'm, like, 90 per cent sure I have

Also, if you've confirmed that your BIOS is set to boot from USB, try using a different USB port. I've had countless HPs that have one of the USB controllers go bad. Preferably try one on the other side of the laptop.

Ubuntu shouldn't require secure boot disabled. Their bootloader and kernels are signed by Microsoft so that they are unaffected by secure boot (not sure about 12.04, it's a bit on the old side).

Also, not sure who told you Ubuntu was maclike, but IMO, Elementary (based on Ubuntu) is SIGNIFICANTLY more mac-lookking than Ubuntu. Ubuntu is just...bleh (IMO).

nope didn't work I GET TO THE SETUP UTILITY and the EXTREMELY annoying alarm

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
BOOT OPTIONS

CD-ROM boot enabled
internal netwrok adapter boot disabled
network boot protocol IPv4 (legacy)
Legacy support enabled
secure boo disabled
pending action none

both the UEFI Boot and LEGACY boot order are set to first USB DISKETTE on Key/USB hard disk

WHAT ELSE IS LEFT I WONDER?

What program did you use to create the USB Disk?

PENDRIVELINUX.COM universalusb installer

well, the wife is home now. Been on this thing for four hours. Time to shut it down and try again on Sunday. My head is about to explode.

From what I can see I've done everything I can. BUT THIS STUPID HP won't fire from the USB so unless I can get it to do so I'm stuck with my wheels spinning.

One gotcha which might apply is that USB boot might only work from one of the USB ports. I have a Dell Inspiron n5050 i3 which will refuse to boot from any USB port except for the blue USB3.0 port (my thumbdrives are all USB2.0, so they certainly work for any other purpose on the other ports).

This was a source of extreme frustration and mystery for me, until I finally tried the other USB ports.

I've got THREE USB ports. Whether they're USB 2 or USB3 ......... silly bollox here has NO idea.
How can I check that out ?

And as for cause for EXTREME FRUSTRATION. You got hat right. Frustration spelled with a big fat EFF indeed

Just try each one in turn, see if it'll boot.

As for whether or not a particular port is USB2 or USB3? Usually, USB3 ports have blue plastic on the inside of the port. But they're backwards compatible so you can plug in a USB2 device in a USB3 port and vice versa. You'll only get USB2 speeds either way, but they'll work fine.

Try that USB stick on some other computer. And please use a newer version of Linux.

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