cbwww/site/docs/grub/index.md

---

title: GRUB payload x-toc-enable: true ...

GRUB already has excellent documentation, but there are aspects of Canoeboot that deserve special treatment. Canoeboot provides the option to boot GRUB directly, running on bare metal (instead of using BIOS or UEFI services).

The GNU+Linux section also has canoeboot-specific guides for dealing with GNU+Linux distributions when using GRUB directly, in this setup. A similar section exists for BSD operating systems

GRUB keyboard layouts

It is possible to use any keymap in GRUB.

Custom keyboard layout

Keymaps are stored in config/grub/keymap/

You can use the ckbcomp program to generate a keymap, based on Xorg keymap files:

ckbcomp fr > frazerty

When you build GRUB from source, you can use the grub-mklayout program to create a special keymap file for GRUB. Learn how to build GRUB

To compile GRUB, in lbmk, do this:

./mk -b grub default

Other GRUB trees are available, but the default one will do for now.

When you've built GRUB, using cbmk (canoeboot build system), take your kepmap file (generated by ckbcomp) and run it through grub-mklayout like so:

cat frazerty | ./src/grub/default/grub-mklayout -o frazerty.gkb

Place the newly created .gkb file under config/grub/keymap in cbmk. When you build Canoeboot, a ROM image with GRUB payload and your newly created keymap will be available under the bin/ directory. Learn how to build Canoeboot ROM images

Many keymaps exist in the Canoeboot build system, but sometimes you must manually tweak the file created by ckbcomp, adjusting the scan codes in that file, before converting to a GRUB keymap file. Therefore, it would be unwise to automatically add all keymaps in GRUB.

If you've added a keymap to cbmk, and it works, please submit a patch!