Hey, I've been busy this weekend so I haven't followed up, but when I get the chance I'll see about helping you fix up your install.

I use the Debian 9 installer often. I'm a creature of habit, and I still have a bunch of blank CDRs from the last time I bought a batch. Therefore, I still just burn the latest Debian netinst installer CDs and use them. (I still have 32 bit computers, so I burn both the 32 bit x86 installer and the 64 bit amd64 installer.)

My experience is not exactly yours because I still always choose to use the non-graphical installer instead of the graphical installer. I think they're mostly the same, though - just that the text installer is less flashy. Still, I should be able to get you across whatever's causing some problem.

I needed a computer to get some work done, so I tried to install mint. It would not install. Found out it could be my dvd rom drive. I replaced it, and tried to install debian.

It went all the way through the install, looks like it was dong good. Got all the way to the end and my screen went to sleep. Computer is on, looks like the install is done, but I have a blank screen. I don't know if it finished, because I was doing something else. Last time I looked, it was about 2/3 of the way done. Next time I look, the screen is off, computer is on, no disc light or HD light.

Chris.

I restarted it. I have SSD's. The HD light was on full, drive was louder then a full on IDE HD. Lasted for a few minutes so I stopped.

Can't install it.

Chris.

Tried the netinstal, didn't work. Tried the "install debian" (not graphical), went all the way through the install and as soon as the status bar reached the end the computer shut off. Doesn't boot up.

I put the mint disc in, it asks if I want to install Mint beside debian, so mint thinks it is installed.

Thank you,
Chris.

update. Read a step by step install guide. It shows "software selection" then "install GRUB bootloader on HD." I don't remember installing grub. Looks like mine is skipping that step.

I do remember doing that with the normal install, which did install. For me, the install disc for the usual install has grub, The nonfree does not install grub.

Thank you,
Chris.

^

install this LIVECD distro :

https://sourceforge.net/projects/linnix/

this thread is at post #67 now.
the problem description was flaky from the beginning, and never much improved.
imo, no chance in high heaven to "solve" this.

happydog00 usually stays polite, but continues to start threads & reply with short "didn't work" statements, despite having no doubt been told that those are, for all intents and purposes, useless.
happydog's been doing that happily for over a decade now. woof, woof.

3 members found this post helpful.

Not "as is" anyway.

And I cannot believe that we can 'blame' this on Debian. That said, I would not advise using the live-cd if you know from the start that you plan to install to HD. Netinst and the full DVD image have never failed me, but I have not installed from live-cd images nearly as often.

Nor can I blame it on Mint, which I have used often and found fast and efficient. (OK, compared to Ubuntu. Not as fast as Debian installed for minimal slowdown.) Something else is going on here, and either clues are missing or I am not seeing them clearly.

1 members found this post helpful.

If your computer is inactive for a period, things turn off to save power, which is expected behavior. On a command line you can tap your shift key and it'll power back on. In a gui you can generally move the mouse to get things to power back on. I suspect that that is what you saw, but panic'd. If you hit the CAPSLOCK key and the light on the keyboard doesn't toggle, then something more game ending has happened. Less of an issue these days if your hardware is not flawed in some way.

I have never used this "nonfree" disc. I always just use the standard disc. I would recommend you try to simplify things by doing a minimal install. That way, it will take less time to get to a working system. At the software selections step, de-select everything (including "standard system utilities").

One thing first - go to the BIOS and make sure anything related to secure boot or UEFI is deactivated. The way this is described varies from BIOS to BIOS. It may describe the old fashioned method of booting as "Legacy Boot". I just did a fresh install on an Acer Aspire e15 es1-511-c0m4. It shipped with secure boot enabled. I went to the BIOS and switched it to "Legacy Boot". I'm sure I made my life a lot simpler by doing so.

Second - install using an ethernet cable. If you don't have an ethernet cable, go out and buy one. If you don't have anything to connect it to, connect it to your other (working) laptop. Go into Network Manager on the working laptop, and change the Wired Connection's IPv4 settings to "Shared with other computers". This will turn the working laptop into a simple router.

Do a minimal install, onto a single full size ext4 partition. At the software selection step, deselect all software suites. The installer will include a GRUB install step. Install to /dev/sda, as you'd expect.

After booting up, you should be greeted with a text login prompt. Here, you can log in directly as root using the root password you had given during installation.

You have not told us what graphics chip you have, but at this point you can determine what you've got with the output of the statement:
This will list some of your computer's hardware, including the graphics chip. Knowing precisely what graphics chip you have will help us give advice on how to get it properly working.

At this point you can do a basic XFCE4 install with: