On Mon, 12 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
I also have an HP EliteBook 840 G3 laptop that currently has Windows 10 and F39. I'd been hoping to install F42 on both machines the same way. The laptop has no DVD drive. Alas, I no longer have any idea how I got F39 onto the laptop. It no longer boots from USB and there is not a lot of other options.
Anyone know how to bbot from USB?
Mash ESC at boot, it should get you into the bios.
Then set the boot delay.
On Mon, May 12, 2025 at 10:26 PM Michael Hennebry < hennebry@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu> wrote:
On Mon, 12 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
I also have an HP EliteBook 840 G3 laptop that currently has Windows 10 and F39. I'd been hoping to install F42 on both machines the same way. The laptop has no DVD drive. Alas, I no longer have any idea how I got F39 onto the laptop. It no longer boots from USB and there is not a lot of other options.
Anyone know how to bbot from USB?
-- Michael hennebry@mail.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu "Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called Hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called Software." -- Mi Neaugh Gno -- _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue
On Mon, 12 May 2025 21:22:30 -0500 (CDT) Michael Hennebry hennebry@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu wrote:
On Mon, 12 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
I also have an HP EliteBook 840 G3 laptop that currently has Windows 10 and F39. I'd been hoping to install F42 on both machines the same way. The laptop has no DVD drive. Alas, I no longer have any idea how I got F39 onto the laptop. It no longer boots from USB and there is not a lot of other options.
Anyone know how to bbot from USB?
F10 opens the UEFI settings. Check the boot options there, as it is possible to disable certain devices for boot.
Then check if your USB is working on another machine and test if it can do an UEFI boot.
On Tue, 13 May 2025, Marco wrote:
On Mon, 12 May 2025 21:22:30 -0500 (CDT) Michael Hennebry hennebry@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu wrote:
Anyone know how to bbot from USB?
F10 opens the UEFI settings. Check the boot options there, as it is possible to disable certain devices for boot.
I can get to the menuing system, but am at a loss as to what to do once I get there. Does HP document its firmware anywhere? On other machines, if I work at it, I get to a list of things from which I might want to boot. If that is on my laptop, I've yet to find it, at least this time around. F39 is on the laptop, so I must have booted from USB at some point.
I do have plenty of free space available. Copying F42 onto its own partition or partitions is a possibility. Once upon a time, one could boot from a partition that was a live DVD image. I think one still can, but the last time I tried it, it would not install to that hard drive. It would not even be nice enough to refuse. It would just pretend the hard drive was not there.
Then check if your USB is working on another machine and test if it can do an UEFI boot.
I put F38 on an SD card using a USB adapter. If I pick the right hub, it will boot my HP compaq dc5800. I have not been able to make it boot my laptop.
On Tue, 13 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
I can get to the menuing system, but am at a loss as to what to do once I get there. Does HP document its firmware anywhere?
I finally found this: http://www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05166986.pdf Still do not know what to do. Cannot get either F38 or F42 to boot. Legacy Boot Order was grayed out until I found Secure Boot Disable/Legacy Boot Enable. I think it tried to boot F38. A message told me to press escape to (I forget). Pressing escape got me a grub prompt. I tried boot. Got told to load the kernel first. I tried reboot. Got the F39 on the internal drive.
Booting from USB is hardly a rare thing to want to do. If allowed, it should be easy.
On Wed, 2025-05-14 at 00:07 -0500, Michael Hennebry wrote:
I finally found this: http://www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05166986.pdf Still do not know what to do. Cannot get either F38 or F42 to boot. Legacy Boot Order was grayed out until I found Secure Boot Disable/Legacy Boot Enable. I think it tried to boot F38. A message told me to press escape to (I forget). Pressing escape got me a grub prompt. I tried boot. Got told to load the kernel first. I tried reboot. Got the F39 on the internal drive.
Booting from USB is hardly a rare thing to want to do. If allowed, it should be easy.
If you do some kind of legacy boot, the install is probably going be done in an old way, and require to be legacy boot, too.
And asking the obvious question: Have you tried different USB ports on the computer? Some may not be an option for booting from.
Am 14.05.2025 um 00:07:14 Uhr schrieb Michael Hennebry:
On Tue, 13 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
I can get to the menuing system, but am at a loss as to what to do once I get there. Does HP document its firmware anywhere?
I finally found this: http://www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05166986.pdf Still do not know what to do. Cannot get either F38 or F42 to boot. Legacy Boot Order was grayed out until I found Secure Boot Disable/Legacy Boot Enable.
Fedora perfectly supports EFI boot, so disable legacy boot.
HP's setup allows to disable certain boot devices. Check if that is the case. Then, make sure your image on the device is fine. I recommend using dd on a Linux machine to create the USB.
On Wed, 14 May 2025, Tim via users wrote:
And asking the obvious question: Have you tried different USB ports on the computer? Some may not be an option for booting from.
Yes. I've read that HP's like left ports, but I've tried both.
On Wed, 14 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2025, Tim via users wrote:
And asking the obvious question: Have you tried different USB ports on the computer? Some may not be an option for booting from.
Yes. I've read that HP's like left ports, but I've tried both.
Got the left port to boot F38, but not F42. I reenabled UEFI secure boot and Boot Menu seems to list it. When I press enter, instead of booting, it does not complain, it just takes me to Startup Menu. Round and round I go.
On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 6:53 PM Michael Hennebry < hennebry@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2025, Michael Hennebry wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2025, Tim via users wrote:
And asking the obvious question: Have you tried different USB ports on the computer? Some may not be an option for booting from.
Yes. I've read that HP's like left ports, but I've tried both.
Got the left port to boot F38, but not F42. I reenabled UEFI secure boot and Boot Menu seems to list it. When I press enter, instead of booting, it does not complain, it just takes me to Startup Menu. Round and round I go.
One of my Dell systems was dual booting F41 with Windows 11, but after 3 successive Windows updates messed with the UEFI settings and required manual fixes to restore Fedora boots, I wiped the disk.
The Fedora 41 USB wouldn't boot, but the Server USB did boot so I used that and installed the Workstation packages I use.
Others have installed an older Fedora and upgraded to the current version.
On Wed, 14 May 2025, George N. White III wrote:
On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 6:53?PM Michael Hennebry < hennebry@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu> wrote:
Got the left port to boot F38, but not F42. I reenabled UEFI secure boot and Boot Menu seems to list it. When I press enter, instead of booting, it does not complain, it just takes me to Startup Menu. Round and round I go.
One of my Dell systems was dual booting F41 with Windows 11, but after 3 successive Windows updates messed with the UEFI settings and required manual fixes to restore Fedora boots, I wiped the disk.
What did they do?
The Fedora 41 USB wouldn't boot, but the Server USB did boot so I used that and installed the Workstation packages I use.
Others have installed an older Fedora and upgraded to the current version.
Since I have F39, apparently I'd have to go through F40 or F41 to get to F42.
I've never changed versions through upgrade. I'd thought that if a version number was justified, a fresh install was the clean thing to do. One time on a fresh install in which I kept my home directory, firefox gave me trouble because of a format change that was not handled. That was a fresh install. Also, my recollection, from the comments of others is that cleaning up after the old install is not always as thorough as it should be.
Are these good directions? https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/upgrading-fedora-offline/ To me, though I might have to, doing it that way is a bit like getting a candy bar because the pop machine won't take my money. Also, doing it that way means I never find out what is going on.
Suggestion on which version to use as the intermediary? Do the F40 or F41 releases require UEFI?
On Wed, 2025-05-14 at 16:53 -0500, Michael Hennebry wrote:
Got the left port to boot F38, but not F42. I reenabled UEFI secure boot and Boot Menu seems to list it. When I press enter, instead of booting, it does not complain, it just takes me to Startup Menu. Round and round I go.
I just couldn't get Fedora 40 install disc to boot on my PC. The disc would spin up, start, then come to a halt with no way to go any further.
In the end I used the server install, it used a different method of booting up (I don't recall the details, just that it's not the same). Then installed a desktop, post-install. I'll probably have to do the same thing when I get around to updating it soon.
I don't do upgrades, either (referring to a latter post by you), it becomes a major pain having to solve *lots* of problems. And is far more time-consuming, even if it goes right. A fresh install may take only 15 minutes, versus hours of upgrading.
On Thu, 2025-05-15 at 18:16 +0930, Tim via users wrote:
I don't do upgrades, either (referring to a latter post by you), it becomes a major pain having to solve *lots* of problems. And is far more time-consuming, even if it goes right. A fresh install may take only 15 minutes, versus hours of upgrading.
I think we've been over this before but I do upgrades all the time and never have a problem with it. If you have local config settings you're going to have to apply them to a new install as well, so what's the advantage?
poc
On Thu, 15 May 2025, Tim via users wrote:
In the end I used the server install, it used a different method of booting up (I don't recall the details, just that it's not the same). Then installed a desktop, post-install. I'll probably have to do the same thing when I get around to updating it soon.
What does "installed a desktop, post-install" mean?
Tim:
In the end I used the server install, it used a different method of booting up (I don't recall the details, just that it's not the same). Then installed a desktop, post-install. I'll probably have to do the same thing when I get around to updating it soon.
Michael Hennebry:
What does "installed a desktop, post-install" mean?
The server installation is command line interface (CLI) only, no Graphical User Interface (GUI). It's often used as a box that sits somewhere, untouched by human hands, everything done remotely.
It's an almost bare-bones install, though it includes various servers that some might want, and you can add anything else that's available to install to it. One thing it includes is cockpit, that allows you to browse to that PC from another computer's web browser and remotely configure things (you can even do it on the same PC).
Gnome, KDE, etc., are Graphical User Interfaces, providing a metaphorical desktop interface (files, folders, windows).
So, after I installed the server install to the computer. I logged in and (as root) did the following (one by one) via the command line:
dnf update dnf groupinstall MATE Desktop
That gave me a desktop (MATE), you can choose whichever desktop you prefer. There's a variety to choose from, and there's a "group" that handles each of them (the basics plus some ancillary things they include). And groups for other things, too (such as games). If you do "dnf grouplist" you can see what's available to you.
For groupnames with blank spaces in them, you may have to quote the whole name (I can't remember if it intelligently handles it, or you have to quote it). But as I recall, my post-install log that I'm copying from (here) was a log of my actual commands.
Then...
dnf install evolution dnf remove hexchat dnf install libreoffice dnf install gvim dnf install mpv dnf install vlc dnf install mkvtoolnix dnf install autofs
I installed Evolution mail, as out of all the various ones I've tried it's the least annoying. Yes, I know that's a dreadful way to choose something.
I removed an IRC client that I do not use (hexchat).
I installed LibreOffice, gvim, mpv and vlc (programs I use). I can't remember what I used mkvtoolnix for at the moment.
I installed autofs. It's an automounting handler, so if I do something like "cd /net/rocky/var/www/" in the command line, or enter that as a path I want to go to in a file browser window, it will automount the NFS share "/var/www" exported from the server "rocky" in /net. It'll also auto dismount it later on. I find it much less painful that having NFS mounts in /etc/fstab as they can cause bunfights as boot, reboot, and shutdown, when things aren't as available as it wants at the time.
I also did:
dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-40.noarch.r... https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-40.no... dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing
Which was to handle getting mkv files playable in mpv.
That's my entire post-install process on installing a system. It's relatively quick and painless. Far less painful than sitting watching an existing box grind its gears working out what packages it already has, what packages to download for an upgrade, preparing an upgrade list, it installing them one by one. Then the fun and games over the following weeks of hunting down incompatibilities between your previous installation and the next one. I know some people don't experience that, but this list is replete with people asking for help to solve a problem that is caused by that.
In my case the PC is a very basic client. I only save local files on it that I'm working on at the time. My archive of things I want to keep is on my server (another PC). My mail is done via IMAP (mail stored on the server, not in the client).
About the only thing I'd like to transition over from one install to another are my web browser bookmarks, and I've had varying levels of failure with that over the years. A big problem being that Firefox only wants to give me an easy method of importing bookmarks from another browser (e.g. if I had Chrome installed), not the prior installation of Firefox.
Of course if you don't use any of the programs I've mentioned, don't bother with those extra installs. Just a groupinstall of a desktop is enough to get you a working computer. And you can use its package handler to install anything else you want.
On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 10:18 PM Michael Hennebry < hennebry@web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu> wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2025, George N. White III wrote:
[...]> One of my Dell systems was dual booting F41 with Windows 11, but after 3
successive Windows updates messed with the UEFI settings and required manual fixes to restore Fedora boots, I wiped the disk.
What did they do?
Trashed partitions and/or rewrote entries I could see with the UEFI/BIOS settings or with efibootmgr.
Boot0001* Fedora HD(1,GPT,... became Boot0001* Fedora PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/NVMe(0x1,00-25-38-5A-01-9E-5A-56)/HD(1,GPT,...
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George N. White III -
Marco -
Marco Moock
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Michael Hennebry -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Terry Polzin -
Tim