I've done low-level coding in the past, hung around on the osdev wiki, and paid a lot of attention to the topic even though I've no real desire to create an OS.

I've done low-level coding in the past, hung around on the osdev wiki, and paid a lot of attention to the topic even though I've no real desire to create an OS. The single biggest piece of advice I'd give to people is _never_ try to write your own bootloader. People have written millions of them, but ultimately grub, etc, have this covered. Writing a boot loader is kinda/sorta fun, I get that, but really it's just a stepping stone which is required to get your _real_ code running. Reinventing wheels is educational, but a boot loader? It's not really worth the time..