Compressed RAM swap
zram provides zstd-compressed swap in memory, with kernel zswap
disabled so pages are never compressed twice. This avoids routine writes
to soldered storage.
A lightweight Debian for repurposed Chromebooks.
Feather is a Debian 13 distribution that turns retired x86-64 Chromebooks into useful, approachable computers for everyday work and development.
Overview
- Debian 13 with an XFCE desktop, built specifically for x86-64 Chromebooks.
- A lightweight base sized for the limited memory and storage of Chromebook hardware.
- Configures Chromebook-specific hardware (keyboard layout and per-board audio) from pinned, auditable sources.
- Per-board profiles rather than broad, platform-wide changes.
- A single Calamares installer with explicit disk selection.
- Standard Debian packages and security updates, not a custom ecosystem.
- Ships a browser, terminal, editor, file manager, and common networking and development tools.
First target
The first hardware target is the Lenovo 500e Chromebook Gen 3
(ChromeOS board boten). Its profile is now
qemu-verified, not supported: QEMU can verify Feather's detection
and configuration logic, but not that speakers, touch, sensors,
suspend, firmware, or internal storage work on the device.
Tuned for Chromebook hardware
The tuning targets the constraints of Chromebook hardware (small soldered eMMC and limited RAM).
Bounded disk writes
The system journal is capped to preserve useful history while limiting writes to small eMMC devices, and a build step trims the image of documentation and unused locales.
Per-board enablement
Keyboard mapping and audio are configured from pinned upstream sources, applied per board rather than as broad platform-wide changes.
Plain Debian underneath
Packages and security updates come from Debian, so what you learn and install carries over to any other Debian system.
Try it in QEMU
Feather runs in a throwaway virtual machine, so nothing on your host is touched. Build on Debian 13, on a Linux filesystem with at least 12 GiB genuinely free (WSL2 works too).
Install the tools once
sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils ovmfBuild 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
preview.sh builds the ISO (it needs root, so it prompts for your
password) and boots it in a graphical QEMU window. Already have an ISO? Run
scripts/preview.sh --no-build to go straight to the window.
These images are for evaluation in QEMU. They are not installers for real hardware, and the gated install guides in the repository must not be followed yet.
Project status
| Area | Current evidence |
|---|---|
| Repository configuration and hardware fixtures | Passing locally |
| Clean ISO artifact | 940572672 bytes, QEMU-verified |
| UEFI and legacy live boot | QEMU-verified |
| BOTEN injected-DMI QEMU test | QEMU-verified, not supported |
| Calamares virtual-disk installation | Pending manual QEMU evidence |
| NVRAM fallback and disk isolation | Pending QEMU storage evidence |
| Physical Chromebook validation | Deferred (Lenovo 500e Gen 3) |