Linuxcnc Mint 19.3 ISO

Ditch Chrome and use Firefox.
Or try wget builtvisible.com/download-your-website-with-wget/

Nothing's easy. I finally managed to successfully download the image using Edge (yuk), made a bootable USB FAT32 using Rufus and tried to run it several times. At startup, I would be offered the option to run but each time I did so, it would sit with the cursor frozen after 20-30 seconds of reading the USB. Repeated the download on another machine and NTFS but same result. Finally tried again using Firefox but same result each time. Possibly some BIOS setting causing this?

Then from within the existing Debian install (from 4 years ago), I downloaded a Mint Cinnamon image, planning to install it directly. This required a different bootable USB utility (Etcher) to be downloaded first. I managed to download it but couldn't figure out what to do next to actually install it to make it run. My psychic powers clearly weren't up to the job and none of the "getting started" or FAQs actually addressed the question of what to do after downloading the install package. Detail I know - but while I'm more than happy to admit I'm a soft Windows guy, it's surprising how unintuitive this is turning out to be.

I've got a Jetway JNF9C-2800 mobo and am assuming this Intel build is appropriate here:
For Mint 19.3 with updated kernel & Official V2.8.0 Linuxcnc:
ISO:
cnc.beaglebrainz.net/cdimage/cnc-19.3.0-...lus-uspace-64bit.iso
md5:
cnc.beaglebrainz.net/cdimage/cnc-19.3.0-...lus-uspace-64bit.md5

Can somebody point out the (no doubt) simple error I'm making here?

Thanks!

Forget Rufus & Etcher, use win32diskimager, I’m pretty sure I recommend that. It will boot UEFI no worries.
Don’t worry if Windows doesn’t recognise the USB stick after that is normal.
Yes the 19.3 image is good for amd & intel 64 bit systems.

And finally check the md5sum you’ll have to google how to do that within windows.

Now before I upload the images I test them in a virtual machine, then on a desktop, then on laptop and then on my Odroid. Both legacy & UEFI booting is tested where available. I try both USB 2.0 and 3.0 sticks and I try booting from both USB 2.0 & 3.0 ports depending on the machine.

Some Motherboards do take a little longer to boot, after making the boot selection, so it may take a little longer than expected. What you can do on the boot menu is press e to edit and remove the quiet or splash bit. This will cause all the kernel messages to print out. Now if it gets stuck on entropy just wiggle the mouse around a bit.
Otherwise you’ll need to either report where it gets stuck on take a photo of the screen.

Not sure where Rufus came from but I'll give Disk Imager a go.

The Disk Imager wiki says "Writing standard ISO images is not supported, however hybrid images created with Syslinux's isohybrid does work. Most Linux distributions are now going this route, as are some other ISO images."

So can I assume that the ISO files linked are suitable for use with DI? In which case I have to select "all files *.*" rather than the IMG format it expects natively.

A screenshot would simply show a black screen with a single cursor symbol at the top left. I hope to improve on that.

This is the utility:
sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
Win32diskimager works and has done for years. I used to use it when I was an XP & Vista user. Many of us on the forum have used it successfully. I wouldn't recommend it if it wasn't suitable. It wastes my time & wastes your time.

Here are some tips:
forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...19-3-linuxcnc#184773

Just had a look at the specs for the CPU of your board, if you are going to use the parallel port, Wheezy , even tho Wheezy is End of Life but still very usable, might be the better solution.

I've got a 5i25 / 7i76 combo with LCNC 2.7.3. It works with the 4y old system on the bench already. I thought I'd update it to the current recommendation before getting busy with it but I seem to be getting nowhere.

I realise the first installation attempt was actually with the win32diskimager and when that failed, I tried the Rufus tool. Then Etcher from within the old Debian environment.

This morning I tried again with the win32 tool, double checking that the MD5 checksum was correct (it always was). This failed in the same way. Also tried a different (16GB) Lexar UFD but it failed in the same way.

I get the menu of 4 options (start Mint, start Mint in compatibility mode, OEM install and check integrity). None of them do anything helpful unless you include running away to the top left of the blank screen behind a frozen cursor.

I've carefully checked the hints post you linked to but nothing springs out. Similarly, the BIOS doesn't seem to offer any settings that seem relevant. It claims UEFI 2.0 compliance if that's of relevance. The BIOS clock is showing the right time, so the backup battery hasn't failed, FWIW.

Currently it has a 120GB Samsung SSD with the original Debian system on it, which runs fine. I removed that and tried a complete new 128GB ADATA SSD in case that is in some way causing the issue. No improvement.

Perplexed! Any suggestions?