>>105608881
This is what I have now but am struggling to make that image bootable because somehow the empty file I create to act as the disk image does not work exactly the same as a proper disk would, even though logically I think it should...

>>105608899
I just want to learn how to create a linux system without the help of distributions (except for using a distro to build that system). I could use grub but I just picked syslinux because it seemed simple, bootloader shouldn't matter.