> I can’t really speak to Fuchsia systems, but a lot (most?) Linux desktop distros use stub or systemd-boot bootloading these days.

Which ones are you thinking of? Most 'desktop' distros I've used recently still default to Grub (Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, Ubuntu) though I'd certainly be glad if change is on the horizon.

Pop!OS has systemd-boot on systems with UEFI

Arch install script defaults to systemd

I didn't know systemd had its own bootloader. I thought everything was still GRUB, I think all my systems are GRUB.

Course I'm a few years out of date

Actually, with refind being a thing, I'm not sure why grub is still a thing.

Also why MS' bootmgr stuff is still a flaming pile of junk.

Edit: And why MS has never given us a way to dictate where it installs its junk and/or to not install its junk!!!!!!

This is the reason why I disable all non windows drives in my machine before letting any Microsoft installer do its things.

Windows is a bit better these days, if you create an EFI partition it'll just use that even if you've made it much larger than it normally creates for itself.

This means you can just partition everything from Linux and then install windows safely into where you select.

Don't forget Syslinux[0], available for both legacy BIOS systems as well as EFI. All binaries except for the really low level stuff are in ELF format, so can be generated, linked and manipulated by tools which support this.

[0]: https://wiki.syslinux.org/

systemd’s efforts in the boot path are very welcome, they’re much better. Sadly as others have noted, a great many distros are still using grub.

To clarify a bit too, as it seems it may not have been clear: grub was never run or installed inside a fuchsia system, I was building disk images from Linux hosts.

Isn't rEFInd a Hackintosh thing? That's the context I hear about it in, anyway.