It replied, "no errors reported"

But the same error appears on reboot. insert proper disk

@rolfie: Thank you, I always boot in legacy bios mode where and when I can, to avoid the esp shims and signing.

I made up my mind a long time ago, and always use legacy boot. But my laptop is a slightly different scenario.

It just has to work.

I do know from experience that most of the iso have a similar installer function.

I might try the PcLinuxOs iso, just to see if that gets me out of this situation.

There is an upside to using the grub-super...iso, if the laptop gets lost it will be hard to use without the usb as a key..

Thank you fred.

I had this before and the bios gave the error above, this is why I am asking.

I just rebooted the laptop and it gives the same error. edit...

partmon gave a warning the the kernel would not be aware of the change until rebooted.

When selecting the bios (esc) it shows only the cdrom as a bootable device (no usb inserted).

I have that iso, exegnulinux... but even after several installs, I get the same bios error.

wip

I haven't found one (a log file) for the network device after startup (boot and init) but the place to search is /var/log/

I did see references in user.log sys.log and dmesg, but mostly early initialisation.

user.log tells me cron is complaining about not have mta for internal mail (to nobody but me) but doesn't explain the drop outs.

I think if I were to search further, I would check the logs inside the modem/router, But I am not suppose to access the modem, It's not mine.

I get those too, but I had a feeling it was the old wifi router at this place.

I don't get the start-up prob... I turn the wifi off before I shutdown for the night to avoid surprises

(I start the vpn, proxy and ptunnel manually, but the nft firewall starts with sysinit)

I'd be interested to see what may cause the drop-outs.

Hi, thank you for all the replies.

I am avoiding any M$ crap, if possible.

I partitioned the disk with gpt.
I have switched off fastboot, and secureboot in the bios.
Also I have the disk recognised using ahci.
CSM is ENABLED.

Because this is a different machine, here is the partitioning table list from,
lsblk

loop0 ... clip
sda    8:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
-sda1 8:1 0       2M 0 part
-sda2 8:2 0   23.4G 0 part
-sda3 8:3 0    8.4G 0 part
-sda4 8:4 0    3.5G 0 part
-sda5 8:5 0    3.5G 0 part
-sda6 8:6 0  16.6G 0 part
-sda7 8:7 0   183G 0 part
sdb ... (devuan-live memory stick)
-sdb1 ... clip
... clip
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

I wrote UEFI, but I may have meant EFI.

If I am to re-install an OS to the laptop, I must get past this partitioning problem.

My memory fails me, but I'm beginning to think that the laptop was using efi-boot, with fastboot and secureboot switched off.
In my old notes I have a 199.2Mb fat partition.
I may have changed this at some time, without reinstalling the OS, and maybe that is why I'm not familiar with the boot time grub errors.

I only use it when I'm away from home and need a PC. Like travelling, holidays, house-sitting, etc.

There is no personal data at risk... so I may reinstall, but boot from the efi section of the flash-drive and then see if the install progresses past the grub-install section.

The last attempt, last evening I continued past the error, but on reboot could login but not start a gui. ( now I remember I installed xfce4, not plasma, lol)

Anyhow, I wanted to install trinity, because I like (familiar with) kde systems.

I downloaded and dd'd to a stick super_grub2_disk,

dd bs=512k if=/home/glenn/Downloads/super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s10.iso of=/dev/sde status=progress && sync

But didn't find a way to install/reinstall grub. So, I must have changed the partitioning scheme and borked the install on my own.

Anyhow, life's an adventure, and I'm always open to a new truth & still learning.

Thanks again

Thanks zapper...

What have you tried with rfkill?

I currently do not have rfkill installed, although I have seen some info on rfkill... like this web page

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-manage-wifi-interfaces-with-rfkill-command-on-linux

... by interface ID or type for BT and wifi.

from another page suggests iwconfig... is power management enabled?

Thank you, saving bandwidth is precisely why I want to try it.

I remember the computers at work were similar in how they worked,

first I had to start the machine, go and get a coffee (because it would take so long), login to the network and then proceed to load the programs I would need for the day.

This was long before I had any interest in computing, it was just work (selling spare parts for transport (people) air conditioning in the 80's)

I'm not sure what brand they were. But I loved getting the office girl to help me create macros to simplify my job.

I see your point, swanson. And I feel the same way, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's getting more and more like M$ file systems.

What I'd like to see is a selection box in the installer program for stand-alone PC's, no extra networking or accessibility fluff doing nothing.

I see the usr-merge as another step towards breaking older systems. "You'll need to pay a tech to fix that!" remember y2k?

Thanks Unixman1230, I'll definitely  try this soon.

One thing I've been doing for quite some time is backing-up /root, /boot and /etc to a folder in my home directory partition.

This allows me to reinstate any config files I have changed/customised.

Of course you will require a separate partition for /home and not format it during an install.

But this apt-cdom approach may alleviate that concern.

I have tried mounting iso's, but generally get an error about either no release file or checksums.

Thanks again.

Thank you for the heads-up! I'll keep this in mind for when I do my next clean install. I've avoided usrmerge up until now, I have read about it.