We can mark this problem solved. (kind of).
The solution is in the link provided by Jerry in Reply #1, above. Actually, it came as a link within that link, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cheap-lap...ik-hemrin/ where Henrik Hemrin gives a story about how he loaded Mint on the same laptop as mine.
The reason I said, "kind of" solved is because there appears to temporarily be a bug several others have been dealing with regarding Ubuntu and UEFI with the bootloader locking them out of finishing boot. I believe that I fell prey to that same bug, which would block booting from taking place. I only noticed that issue AFTER I properly set the laptop bios to the settings, as outlined in the article link.
I tried both Linux Lite and all variants of Mint, with no luck. Linux Lite has the Ubuntu bug/issue that was not a problem for people in prior versions. Mint's distros, as of today, were not playing well with Rufus (also likely a temporary issue). So I tried MX Linux next (Debian), a distro which would be my 2nd or 3rd choice behind Linux Lite, and it installed just fine, after the bios changes from the article. It was different enough not to suffer from this temporary issue, which I imagine will be resolved in future updates.
So I am good. I hope to try Linux Lite again on this machine, one day. I run it on another laptop, and prefer it.
The solution is in the link provided by Jerry in Reply #1, above. Actually, it came as a link within that link, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cheap-lap...ik-hemrin/ where Henrik Hemrin gives a story about how he loaded Mint on the same laptop as mine.
Quote:Finally, I reinstalled but this time in ”EFI” (UEFI) mode instead of BIOS (legacy) mode, setting in the Boot menu. Linux Mint supports both booting alternatives. In order to have EFI to work, I needed to disable the Secure boot option in the boot menu. After this reinstallation, Linux Mint started perfectly!
The reason I said, "kind of" solved is because there appears to temporarily be a bug several others have been dealing with regarding Ubuntu and UEFI with the bootloader locking them out of finishing boot. I believe that I fell prey to that same bug, which would block booting from taking place. I only noticed that issue AFTER I properly set the laptop bios to the settings, as outlined in the article link.
I tried both Linux Lite and all variants of Mint, with no luck. Linux Lite has the Ubuntu bug/issue that was not a problem for people in prior versions. Mint's distros, as of today, were not playing well with Rufus (also likely a temporary issue). So I tried MX Linux next (Debian), a distro which would be my 2nd or 3rd choice behind Linux Lite, and it installed just fine, after the bios changes from the article. It was different enough not to suffer from this temporary issue, which I imagine will be resolved in future updates.
So I am good. I hope to try Linux Lite again on this machine, one day. I run it on another laptop, and prefer it.