at the grub screen, i chose the OEM for manufacturers. when i got to the welcome screen, i found that the language can be changed to another and it works. it isnt really necessary to select it, it is set at english by default, but i do know i could change it. however, after that it was necessary to press either 'continue' or 'quit' and neither one would react when i selected it. it is possible i didnt understand that there was something else to do besides click on one or the other of those buttons, but i think i also tried hitting the enter key after that and there also was no response. it was eerie, it was behaving exactly the same as when i tried to boot choosing 'try or install ubuntu' or 'boot in safe graphics mode'. the welcome screen was the same except there were no 'try' and 'install' buttons, only 'continue' and 'quit'.

so basically what i saw and described is all there was to see or do at that point. the screen and my laptop were completely frozen and i could not logout. i had to cold poweroff.

hmm..i was supposed to see the screen where i would have to choose the live desktop and then to change the line after the language screen...now i get it. that is when i would have been able to use the 'e' key for edit. the install never got that far...

yes i am, but i mean you cant see the letters on the screen anywhere, right? you just have to hope for the best? that would make it hard to do...

there is supposed to be a space between the letters, right? lower case? i will try it again next time, and every time in fact-but i wish it wouldnt happen any more...

as for reformatting the usb i have that as a last resort, but i have infinite patience, and as long as i get suggestions on how to fix it, i will try. if it is worth the time it takes to post them to someone else, it is certainly worth it to me to try them.

No space between letters and I've always used lower case so I don't know if it matters.

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today i downloaded the .iso for ubuntu 22.04.1 and did the checksum. i think if no one has any more suggestions, i will go ahead and try to format the flash and then create a new one and see if it works.

i am thinking of using the usb-creator software on this laptop although i now know what 'dd' is and it is sounding good to me. the fact that the lubuntu flash works i think tells me that usb-creator is ok even if it looks weird on the disk screen. but it might be interesting to see how it turns out using dd and compare.

if the old one, after using it to make a new live boot, doesnt work using disk creator, i may get a new flash and try using that, and if that also doesnt work i will have to look deeper into the laptop for some issue.

once i do that, i will mark this thread as being solved. since my two questions were to get into the bios (which i now can) and to be able to boot with a flash (which now i can with one of the two i have) i think those have been answered well here.

If you have problems writing the new iso to the usb, you can use GParted to create a new partition table from the Device tab at the top of the window. This is often necessary when writing over a USB which previously had an iso written to it.

Good Luck.

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thanks...

i got a new usb flash (after reformatting the old one and creating a new flash and trying it and finding out it didnt work) and i am now on the try ubuntu page, the welcome screen i mean, and it looks like it is stuck just like the other one was. i clicked on the release notes link that was on the page and i got mozilla and behind it still sits the welcome page doing nothing.

this flash was created with dd. it is partitioned like the other one i had, and all the files were transferred without error.

i dont know what is going on but i will have to look elsewhere for the issue-i mean in the hp laptop which i now hate as much as i hated my dell.

thanks to everyone for all your help, i did learn a lot and the questions i asked were answered, so i am marking this thread solved.

Sounds pretty unusual. Did you do an md5 checksum on the iso file after you downloaded it to verify that it was not corrupted during the download? There is a link on the Ubuntu download page explaining how to do this>

yes, i checked it in the terminal and i also used Gtk.

i have been going over the posts in this thread, and doing more research and i am working on posting one which i am still working on the title for. and i have a lot more to include now after this thread! maybe tomorrow i will be ready. i hope i am able to do whatever it takes to get it to run. i know linux can do anything. anyway it can do what i want.