I have a PURISM mini librem that came pre-loaded with PureOS. I created a Linux Mint bootable USB and I am trying to replace the PureOS system. The USB is read as a boot drive from my windows machine and the PureOS machine recognizes the USB drive in the files app but when I invoke the Boot setup (ESC) the Mint USB is not listed, only PureOS.

What do I need to do to get PureOS to recognize a Bootable USB? I need detailed instructions on how to access configuration in PureOS as I cannot figure out how to do much in this OS. It is not like Ubuntu or Mint in friendliness.

Thanks.

Many BIOS also have a boot menu quickly accessible with hotkey. If you say ESC is the way to do that, and it doesn't show up there, there's something wrong with your USB or the port. Try sticking it in elsewhere. Or go into the BIOS proper and change it to boot from (any) USB drive.

I have more advice, but first things first. Don 't want to jump to conclusions.

The hotkey you want to reach the device to boot selection menu (BBS) probably is not ESC (unless yours is an HP). The following is a summary of most BBS Boot hotkeys:

• ASRock F11
• Asus F8
• Biostar F9?
• Dell F12
• eCS F10
• eMachines F10
• EVGA F7
• Gigabyte F12
• HP F9 or ESC or ESC,F9
• Lenovo F12 or F8 or F10
• MSI F11
• Toshiba F12

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The Boot Menu key is ESC, I see it appear in the start up and ESC does bring up the boot menu. The problem is, my USB drive doesn't appear in the boot menu selection. This is a PURISM Mini Librem PC. It was specially designed by Purism for security. I believe it somehow has a hard bypass on USB boot. I cannot find anywhere in the Systems to edit the BIOS options to tell it to look at USB drives. I've burned two USBs and tried them on all 4 ports. I know the computer can read the USBs once booted.

If you can tell me how to find and edit the BIOS I will greatly appreciate it.

There may be some special secret applicable to that special PC. Is secure boot enabled in its BIOS?

If you can't find anything in its manual, you could try detaching its internal drive, then trying to boot from USB to see what happens. I'm guessing it should boot from USB, because there's nothing else to boot from, unless it's configured for PXE booting. If it does, next to try would be to attach a wiped HDD or SSD to see if it boots from USB then. These tests might reveal clues to how to make it boot from USB when an internal HD of some kind already has an OS installed.

Installation of most Gnu/Linux operating systems does not require USB, CD, DVD or PXE to be able to install. The Grub bootloader used to boot most of them can load an installation kernel and initrd that's been downloaded in advance and placed where Grub can find them. Once you are able to do that, the installation program can repartition, or simply use the partitioning that the existing OS has been using, for the new installation. Installation via Grub is how I have been doing most installing for nearly two decades.

Every computer has an option to get into the BIOS proper.
Well, every computer I know of.
It is true Purism use (possibly modified) coreboot or libreboot BIOS instead of what the device came with, but I can hardly imagine they locked that down so it can't be edited, ot another distro cannot be booted.
If they did, I'd really like to know!

I think you should look around on their own forums or mailing lists, you can't be the 1st person to try to boot/install something else.

I got the solution from Purism. Instead of hitting ESC repeatedly at power on, which brought me to a different menu listing, I just needed to wait for the OS to put up the "ESC = Boot Menu" verbiage when the splash page appeared. At that point I hit ESC one time and it brought me to the correct boot menu. Very tricky timing.

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