[GTALUG] Toshiba Satellite L500 rejects Linux

[Don Tai]

I have Puppy on an install CD... It always seems to work for me. Puppy is
the last man standing Linux install...

On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 16:05, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:

> I'm not sure that it's a portable-media issue.
> My first instinct is to try a distro that specializes in older HW such as
> Puppy.
> That should be installable to and bootable from a USB stick.
>
> If that works it could easily be a wonky Secure Boot implementation.
> If your preferred target is Debian, perhaps the "Shim"
> <https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#Shim>tool might help?
>
> - Evan
>
>
> On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 9:13 AM Giles Orr via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Don.
>>
>> Probably a good suggestion, but I don't think it will work for me: the
>> Toshiba in question does have an optical drive, but even if I can find
>> a CD burner, I'm not sure I have media I can burn to anymore (I have a
>> stack of blank CDs ... but they're 15+ years old).
>>
>> On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 08:38, Don Tai <dontai.canada at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > When I find an old computer that won't boot USB I go back to a 32 bit
>> CD install, then upgrade. Some old PCs simply won't reliably boot with USB.
>> >
>> > On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 08:34, Giles Orr via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I've recently acquired (through a friend who stopped using it) a
>> >> Toshiba Satellite L500 - Core i3 (3rd gen?), 4G RAM.  I'm determined
>> >> to get Linux onto it (preferably Debian).  I thought I had succeeded:
>> >> I booted from a Debian USB stick, installed to the HD.  All appeared
>> >> to go well, but the system won't boot.  It returns to the Boot Menu
>> >> and says "HDXXXX has failed."  What the search engines are telling me
>> >> is that with this generation of Toshibas, the problem is generally
>> >> Secure Boot / CSM etc.  Which makes sense, but ... there is absolutely
>> >> zero mention in the BIOS/UEFI ("Phoenix SecureCore Tiano Setup") of
>> >> "Secure Boot," "CSM," "Legacy," or "UEFI."  Acccording to notes I
>> >> found online, "SecureCore Tiano" has "full support" for legacy
>> >> booting.
>> >>
>> >> Another issue with this machine is my mixed success booting from USB
>> >> sticks: I have an old-ish USB stick I built myself that has GRUB and a
>> >> large menu of ISOs: works great on most systems, won't boot on this
>> >> thing - probably because it's an old-style BIOS-boot only(?).
>> >>
>> >> One of my ideas was to upgrade the BIOS: it appears there's a newer
>> >> version available, but it's NOT available from Toshiba, which is the
>> >> only place I'd want to download it from.  The rest look like dubious
>> >> secondary download sites (if you know one you consider reliable, let
>> >> me know).
>> >>
>> >> What I read online said that Fedora's installer puts an EFI partition
>> >> on the HD as part of the install, while Debian doesn't.  And that
>> >> may(?) be why I can't boot from my Debian install?  So ... I
>> >> downloaded the Fedora installer, put it on a USB stick ... and no joy:
>> >> the Toshiba doesn't recognize the Fedora USB stick as a bootable item.
>> >> Would this be because I burned it on a "Legacy" system?  Is there a
>> >> fix for that?  Except ... I'm about 99% sure the Debian Installer USB
>> >> stick was created on the same machine.
>> >>
>> >> Worst case, I can stick the HD from the Toshiba into another machine,
>> >> install Fedora on it, repartition to make room for Debian, put the HD
>> >> back into the Toshiba ... but that's getting damn complicated and
>> >> annoying.
>> >>
>> >> As always - any suggestions welcomed.
>>
>> --
>> Giles
>> https://www.gilesorr.com/
>> gilesorr at gmail.com
>> ---
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>
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