Grub needs a patch applied that fixes a compile problem with GCC-3.3.1: patch -Np1 -i ../grub-&grub-patch-version;.patch Prepare Grub for compilation: ./configure --prefix=/usr Compile the package: make And install it: make install mkdir /boot/grub cp /usr/share/grub/i386-pc/stage{1,2} /boot/grub Replace i386-pc with whatever directory is appropriate for your hardware. The i386-pc directory also contains a number of *stage1_5 files, different ones for different filesystems. Have a look at the ones available and copy the appropriate ones to the /boot/grub directory. Most people will copy the e2fs_stage1_5 and/or reiserfs_stage1_5 files.