I purchased this mini-pc, Kaser YF751A-W. The hardware is closed, and I see no screws, so I can't go unplugging drives, or changing any switches/jumpers. The manufacturer's website kasercorp.com (listed on the box) doesn't have the product listed. The only additional information I can find is this pdf doc from a walmart site that happily says it supports Linux!
I'm trying to use a USB stick to install Linux. I've tried multiple distributions, x86 and x64*. I've verified the USB stick boots on another system, and I've created the bootable disk using unetbootin and rufus. All of these produce the same result, so I don't think my method or materials are the problem.
I can get to the BIOS, and I've tried the basic things, like setting only the USB stick in boot priority (this results in booting straight to windows), and using the boot override menu to select the USB stick directly (this makes the screen flash, then return to the override menu.
Googling around quite a bit, I've found people recommending things like making sure secure boot and fastboot are disabled, they are. I've tried many, many options in the BIOS, as there are some interesting ones, but nothing seems to get the system to boot to the stick. The other thing these sites recommend is going to the 'advanced boot options' in windows and trying to edit the UEFI options from there (this boots me back to the BIOS) or trying to select the USB device to boot to from there (this boots straight back into windows).
I'm thinking the problem is under the Advanced -> OS/BOM Configuration section of the bios where there are some unconfigurable settings that say:
BOM Selection Switch Force Windows/BOM3.1
Pre-OS/BOM Selection Windows 8.X/BOM3.1
OS/BOM Selection Windows 8.X/BOM3.1
Anyone know how these options might be changed?
The only other thing I can boot to other than the preinstalled windows is the EFI shell, but I'm not sure what to do from here to fix the issue.
I've "opened a ticket" and sent an email to the manufacturer, but I have low hopes for a response.
*It's a 64bit processor, but the preinstalled windows is 32bit, and the efi shell is 32bit. **I've fired up EasyUEFI and VisualBCD but it looks like the BIOS, where I have only the USB enabled. I've considered deleting the windows entries, to see if the system freaks out and lets me boot something else, but I consider that the nuclear option, as it might brick the device.