Regarding grub, 2.x is torture. All hdd's with even traces of its code should be collected and shot to the sun to make sure noone would ever recreate something

Regarding grub, 2.x is torture. All hdd's with even traces of its code should be collected and shot to the sun to make sure noone would ever recreate something as painful to use as grub2. Even more, samples of their configs should be posted on the walls of every CS class, together with charges of crimes against humanity against all developers responsible for that abomination - as a warning to anyone thinking of going their road. Most systems these days have EFI bioses, just create a 512M EFI partition[1] and put your kernel(s)(with a set kernel-command line) to EFI/Boot(bootx64.efi is usually the default being loaded). You don't need a bootloader at all(+you'll get a few s off of your boot time too). Many bioses let you choose a kernel at boot time, so you don't even have to play with efibootmgr[2] if running multiple kernels/OS's. It gets more tricky if you want LVM root fe(which I'd recommend) - in that case genkernel[3] may make your life a lot easier, but even here you don't require a boot loader. If you do want a nice(er) boot menu, just copy refind[4] to your EFI partition, configuration takes seconds and you can tune it very - VERY - easily Also, folks @ #gentoo are very helpful, feel free to give them a visit if you are stuck. And the last thing I want to add - you don't have to compile your binaries on your nb/slow hw, just setup a binhost[5] and compile your tailored packages on your beefy PC/server@work - you can then share them with your devices via http for example Ok, last one - if you like elementary os, you can get the same look&feel running on gentoo, although it may take some hacks at this stage [1] http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub_kernel http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub_kernel [2] http://linux.die.net/man/8/efibootmgr http://linux.die.net/man/8/efibootmgr [3] http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Genkernel http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Genkernel [4] http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ [5] http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Binary_package_guide http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Binary_package_guide ..a buildroot micro-system running other distributions as overlays is also a nice time-waster and only a step away from gentoo(+ with lxc/docker there is a lot of long-hanging fruit to collect)