How to set up keyboard layout in GRUB2 Shell with sabayon

Question

I have an Italian keyboard and I want to set up the correct layout in GRUB shell.

I found many tutorials online that make use of grub-kbdcomp or grub-mklayout, but those commands don't work on my distribution.

How can I set the proper layout?

Answer 1

grub-kbdcomp is just a shell script that is a wrapper for the Debian ckbcomp utility and grub-mklayout. No Sabayon Linux Entropy package for ckbcomp exists, although there is a Gentoo Portage package which can be installed in Sabayon linux and used as shown below.

1. As there is no Entropy package for ckbcomp, install it via Portage.

1.1 Install Gentoo's Portage overlay manager.

    # equo install git
    # equo install layman

1.2 Synchronise the Gentoo Portage package ebuild tree.

    # emerge --sync # Do not update portage if told to do so.

1.3 Synchronise the Sabayon distribution's Gentoo Portage overlay package ebuild tree.

    # layman -S

1.4 Add the Sabayon distribution's Gentoo Portage overlay.

    # layman -a sabayon-distro

1.5 Synchronise the Sabayon distribution's Gentoo Portage overlay package ebuild tree.

    # layman -S

1.6 Install sys-apps/ckbcomp via Portage as there is no Entropy package.

    # emerge -1v ckbcomp # Ignore any Gentoo news items.

1.7 Tell Entropy what you did via Portage.

    # equo rescue spmsync

2. Create a new sub-directory to store the GRUB keyboard layout file.

   # mkdir /boot/grub/layouts
   

3. Convert the X11 keymap to the GRUB keymap. The X11 keymap /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/it must exist for this to work.

   # ckbcomp it nodeadkeys | grub2-mklayout -o /boot/grub/layouts/it.gkb
   Unknown keyboard scan code 0x54
   Unknown keyboard scan code 0x65
   Unknown keyboard scan code 0x7f
   

4. Append 'GRUB_TERMINAL_INPUT=at_keyboard' in /etc/default/grub.

   # nano /etc/default/grub
   # tail -n 1 /etc/default/grub
   GRUB_TERMINAL_INPUT=at_keyboard
   

5. Add insmod and keymap lines as shown below.

   # nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom
   # tail -n 2 /etc/grub.d/40_custom
   insmod keylayouts
   keymap $prefix/layouts/it.gkb
   

6. Check what locales are available.

   # locale --all-locales | grep -i it
   

7. Change/add locale (only) to /etc/default/sabayon-grub as shown below. Leave other entries, if any, in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX as they are.

   # nano /etc/default/sabayon-grub
   # grep locale /etc/default/sabayon-grub 
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="locale=it_IT dolvm rd.lvm.lv=sabayon_sabayon/swap rd.lvm.lv=sabayon_sabayon/root resume=/dev/mapper/sabayon_sabayon-swap splash vconsole.keymap=it rd.vconsole.keymap=it quiet"
   

8. Regenerate the grub.cfg file.

   # grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
   

9. Check that grub.cfg has been modified accordingly:

   # grep terminal_input /boot/grub/grub.cfg
   terminal_input at_keyboard
   # grep gkb /boot/grub/grub.cfg
   keymap $prefix/layouts/it.gkb
   # grep layouts /boot/grub/grub.cfg
   insmod keylayouts
   keymap $prefix/layouts/it.gkb
   

10. If the machine uses UEFI rather than PC BIOS, update the GRUB files in the EFI directory.

    # grub2-install --efi-directory=/boot/efi
    

11. Reboot to check if the it keymap has been loaded for the GRUB shell.

    # systemctl reboot