Linux on a Zotac PicoBox PI-320-W2 part 1

This is part one of my journey to get Linux up and running reliably on a Zotac PicoBox PI-320-W2. I purchased the Zotac PicoBox PI-320-W2 mini-PC for use as a MythTV frontend. The device is cheap (open box on Amazon for under $150), Intel BayTrail powered, and should be powerful enough to support my needs.The PicoBox box came with Windows 8.1 (32-bit) w/Bing. This is the trimmed down version of Windows for devices with less memory and storage space. The PicoBox has 2 GB RAM and 32GB eMMC flash. The first challenge was getting Linux to boot. Some (most/all?) of the BayTrail devices have 64 bit capable CPUs, but the UEFI is only 32 bit. Blame has been pointed in various directions for this, but the result for Linux is a difficult boot experience. Ubuntu, my preferred Linux distribution, does not offer a version with 32-bit UEFI booting. To overcome this, I created a UEFI boot drive using Mythbuntu 14.04.I used Rufus from a Windows 7 laptop to create a UEFI bootable USB disk using Mythbuntu 14.04 amd64. I tested this USB drive by booting another machine. So far, so good, the PicoBox has a 64 bit capable CPU, but only a 32-bit UEFI. After several failed attempts, I found that the 32-bit version of Grub2 is able to boot the 64-bit kernel.  Following the instructions here, I built a 32-bit GRUB EFI. Once the 32-bit Grub file is copied to the USB stick I was ready to test.When the computer boots open the one time boot menu, and select the USB drive. With the correct 32-bit Grub in place, everything worked. Grub saw the grub.cfg file from the Ubuntu installer and booted the 64-bit kernel without issues.Once the install of Linux was complete, I had to copy the 32-bit Grub file to the internal eMMC flash drive to allow the system to boot without the USB  drive.Moving along well! I can now bring up the boot menu and select the Linux option and Mythbuntu 14.04 amd64 boots right up. This is where I discover the first snag, The system will only boot Linux when I enter the BIOS first, or access the one-time boot menu. No matter what I tried I could not get Linux to boot by simply restarting the system. I contacted Zotac support to ask about if I could flash an older BIOS. The older BIOS files are not available on their website. Their response was no, that would cause the system to not be bootable anymore. They did provide me the older BIOS files though. I tried to edit the BIOS to enable some of the settings screen removed by the newer BIOS. No luck. I was still not able to get the system to boot from a restart or a cold boot into Linux. I had to access the BIOS or one-time boot menu.Continue to part 2 for the next challenge and resolution.