The only distro I can find that successfully configures a functioning bootable GRUB on this (bastard) machine is Nobara, which looks very cool but is way too heavy! Some things are glitchy; attempting tab completion seems to freeze Konsole for ~5 seconds and does not complete the command as expected. We’re working with an Intel Atom Z3735F@1.33GHz and 2GB RAM here.
How can a noob figure out what it’s doing differently so I can apply that to Linux Mint Debian Edition or Crunchbang Plus Plus?
The weird thing is that once the system is installed, it does not seem to have what I think are the required packages for GRUB to be set up correctly with this type of UEFI.
nextbook@nextbook:~$ sudo grub2-install /dev/mmcblk
grub2-install: error: /usr/lib/grub/i386-efi/modinfo.sh doesn't exist. Please specify --target or --directory.
It was the only one I managed to install too. I recommended it, because it’s easier for beginners and comes with a few optimizations for low end hardware.