EliteBook 8570w and Linux Mint 18.2

[DGremlin]

I recently purchased a refurbished EliteBook 8570w, and not being a fan of Windows 10, took out that hard drive, put a mSATA in it, and installed Linux Mint.  The machine had come with a SSD in the upgrade bay, but I replaced that with the CD/DVD SuperMulti drive.

This is a powerhouse machine, and I replace the keyboard with the backlit one, and have memory up to 24GB now (last chip is on the way, and a 2nd hard drive (SSD will be the next step).

There are only 2 problems to surmount, and I will be set.

1.  The EFI boot sequence with HP requires me to step down a few levels to boot up.  I would like to have something like a direct boot into Linux.  Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.  Or, is there a BIOS editor available that would let me 'tune' the BIOS to my needs?

2. The optical drive still is not recognized, and any suggestions will be appreciated.  I definitely want this drive working.

I have scanned numerous posts about Linux Mint on HPs, and there are a myriad of suggestions.  Still trying to find the best and final one.

Any help will be truly appreciated.

[MargaretN]

Hi,

The HP EliteBook 857W is a product of Hewlett-Packard Inc.

This community is for customers and friends of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which is an independent company.

For HP products, please see www.hp.com or the HP Support Forums: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/.

[DGremlin]

Can anyone give me an answer, or should I just go to another laptop OEM?

[MargaretN]

As mentioned, for HP products, please see www.hp.com or the HP Support Forums: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/.