title: GNU+Linux guides x-toc-enable: true ...

This page is useful for those who wish to use the GRUB GRUB payload directly. If you're using SeaBIOS, the boot process will work similarly to traditional BIOS systems; refer to the SeaBIOS documentation on https://seabios.org/SeaBIOS

GNU+Linux is the operating system of choice, for osboot development. It is highly recommended over any other operating system, precisely because it consists of Free Software (free as in freedom). There are other free operating systems, such as BSD, but most of the software in a typical GNU+Linux system is also copylefted. To learn more about the importance of copyleft, read this page on the GNU website: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.html

Useful links

Refer to the following pages:

Guix, Parabola, Trisquel

These guides were outdated, so they were deleted. You can find links to them here: libreboot/lbwww#4

The Debian guide has been retained, because it's currently up to date. The Hyperbola guide is already on the Hyperbola website, and the above is just a link.

In general, it is recommended that you use SeaBIOS but if you want extra security, GRUB payload is recommended where you can then have a fully encrypted /boot directory.

TODO: Nuke all distro-specific guides on osboot.org. Instead, move these instructions to the wiki pages of these projects, on their websites. The reasons are explained in the above issue page.

Rebooting system in case of freeze

Linux kernel has a feature to do actions to the system any time, even with it freezes, this is called a Magic SysRq keys. You can do these actions with Alt + Sysrq + Command. These are the actions:

Alt + SysRq + B: Reboot the system
Alt + SysRq + I: Send SIGKILL to every process except PID 1
Alt + SysRq + O: Shut off the system

If some of them don't work, you have to enable it in the kernel command line paramter. So append sysrq_always_enabled=1 to your GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub

You can also run # sysctl kernel.sysrq=1 to enable them.

Fedora won't boot?

This may also apply to CentOS or Redhat. Chroot guide can be found on fedora website

linux16 issue

When you use osboot's default GRUB config, and osboot's grub uses fedora's default grub.cfg (in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg), fedora by default makes use of the linux16 command, whereas it should be saying linux

Do this in fedora:

Open /etc/grub.d/10_linux

Set the sixteenbit variable to an empty string, then run:

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

BLS issue

With newer versions of fedora, scripts from grub package default to generating BLS instead of grub.cfg. To change that behaviour add following line to /etc/default/grub (or modify existing one if it already exists):

GRUB_ENABLE_BLSCFG=false

Then generate grub.cfg with:

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

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