Feather is a lightweight Debian 13 distribution designed to make repurposed x86-64 Chromebooks useful, approachable computers for everyday work and development.

Caution

Feather is not ready for physical Chromebook installation.

No board has completed the physical validation gate. Do not flash firmware, modify Chromebook storage, or follow the gated install guides. Current images are developer artifacts for QEMU only.

Why Feather

• Debian 13 with an XFCE desktop, built specifically for x86-64 Chromebooks.
• Lightweight base sized for the limited memory and storage of Chromebook hardware.
• Configures Chromebook-specific hardware, including the keyboard layout and per-board audio, from pinned, auditable sources.
• Per-board profiles rather than broad, platform-wide changes.
• Single Calamares installer with explicit disk selection.
• Standard Debian packages and security updates, not a custom ecosystem.
• Includes a browser, terminal, editor, file manager, and common networking and development tools.

The first hardware target is the Lenovo 500e Chromebook Gen 3, ChromeOS board boten. Its profile is now qemu-verified, not supported. QEMU verifies Feather's detection and configuration logic; it cannot prove that speakers, touch, sensors, suspend, firmware, or internal storage work on the device.

Project status

Area	Current evidence
Repository configuration and hardware fixtures	Passing locally; CI confirmation pending publication of current commits
Clean ISO artifact	940572672 bytes, QEMU-verified (evidence)
UEFI and legacy live boot	QEMU-verified (evidence)
BOTEN injected-DMI QEMU test	QEMU-verified, not supported (evidence)
Calamares virtual-disk installation	Pending manual QEMU installation evidence
NVRAM fallback and disk isolation	Pending QEMU installation/storage evidence
Physical Chromebook validation	Deferred (Will be done on Lenovo 500e Gen 3)

Development is evidence-gated: each status advances only with its required proof (passing tests, a reproducible artifact, or a completed validation run).

Try it in QEMU

Feather runs in a throwaway virtual machine, so nothing on your host is touched. All writable VM state stays under build/qemu/, and the launcher refuses physical disks or raw images. Build on Debian 13, on a Linux filesystem with at least 12 GiB genuinely free (WSL2 works too; see the build guide).

Install the tools once:

sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils ovmf

One command to build a fresh ISO and open the desktop:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/SakethSripada/Feather-Linux.git feather-linux
cd feather-linux
scripts/preview.sh

scripts/preview.sh builds the ISO (it prompts for your password, because the build needs root) and then boots it in a graphical QEMU window. Already have an ISO? Skip straight to the window:

scripts/preview.sh --no-build

Prefer to drive QEMU yourself? Build once, then launch the newest ISO:

sudo scripts/build.sh
ISO=build/artifacts/feather-linux-<exact-build-id>-amd64.iso
scripts/verify-artifacts.sh --iso "$ISO"
qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -machine q35 -m 3072 -smp 4 -boot menu=on \
  -device virtio-vga \
  -device qemu-xhci,id=xhci -device usb-tablet,bus=xhci.0 \
  -device virtio-rng-pci \
  -netdev user,id=net0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0 \
  -drive if=none,id=cdrom,media=cdrom,readonly=on,file="$ISO" \
  -device ide-cd,drive=cdrom

On a host with KVM, add -accel kvm -cpu host for near-native speed. Without it (for example on WSL2) QEMU uses software emulation: slower to boot, but it works everywhere. The usb-tablet device gives you a normal, grab-free mouse.

For a headless boot check and the other bounded test modes (installer, injected-DMI hardware probe, writable sentinel disks), use the launcher directly. See the build guide:

scripts/test-qemu.sh --smoke --timeout 600

Documentation

• Architecture
• Building and QEMU testing
• Hardware support and diagnostics
• BOTEN physical validation checklist
• Dual-boot validation plan, do not follow yet
• User quick start
• Developer quick start
• Contributing
• Security policy

License and independence

Project code is licensed under GPL-3.0. Original artwork has its own CC BY-SA 4.0 terms. Pinned third-party inputs retain their upstream licenses and notices. See the complete licensing map.

Chromebook is a trademark of Google LLC. Feather is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google LLC, Chromebook device manufacturers, MrChromebox, Chrultrabook, or the pinned upstream projects.