[gentoo-user] re-activating a netbook

[Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net>]

Back in 2009, I bought an Asus EEE netbook, which I called Horace,
& installed Gentoo alongside Windows, which I've never used.
Gentoo was last updated in 2015 ; the device is in good repair.

Recently, I checked Horace & he still does  1  of his intended jobs,
ie reading & editing texts of novels etc downloaded from the I/net
(the other  2  jobs are no longer required).

I wanted to replace Windows with Linux Mint or another binary distro
-- avoiding the need to update Gentoo -- , but ran into a problem :
Horace no longer boots from USB.  I can transfer files via USB stick,
but can't get a live USB version of Mint etc to start.

Also, I now use Wifi exclusively -- I no longer have a landline -- ,
but while Horace can access Wifi, his Gentoo doesn't have Wifi installed,
so there's a Catch-22 : w/o a landline, I can't install WPA etc.

One solution mb simply to copy an upto-date Mint ISO
into the partition now occupied by Windows -- which I don't need --
& set up Lilo -- which is my prefered boot manager -- to boot from it ;
Lilo currently allows a choice of Gentoo/Windows.

Does anyone know if that would work or how to trouble-shoot it ?

-- 
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