Fine, I am thinking of trying to build that linux build again. I failed to even get it to boot, lol. I have no idea why, but syslinux always failed to boot, after following instructions to the letter. So now I am thinking of trying another approach, and also to build it from source, rather than using a prebuilt one. I also need to compile a new kernel, which sucks. But I guess this time around I could try to put in just the drivers I need and remove what I can instead of doing a defconfig, which I always did because I just wanted to see if I can get the machine to boot, which I can't.
On the other hand I am considering writing a bootloader myself and try that out, but of course, I don't imagine booting linux is a very simple thing to do. It would still be a fun experience, though, and it's all about learning, anyway.