UPDATE 2013-04-29

I have created a github for this here. If you have patches please submit pull requests!

UPDATE: I continue to update the kernel as more fixes make it into git. You can check all of the Pixel-related files I’m posting in this Drive folder.

UPDATE 2013-03-27: New kernel with fix for the audio pops, see my G+ post from today.

The Chromebook Pixel is a very nice (if expensive) piece of hardware, designed to run Chrome OS, which is a variant of Linux. Since being noted as favored by Linus Torvalds, inventor and lead maintainer of Linux, support for the various Pixel hardware components has rapidly been added to the kernel git repository.

Not everything is working great just yet, but all of the essential features are working. Here’s a walkthrough that I hope will be sufficient, based almost entirely on other people’s work and howtos. I’ll link to those where I can. Several Google software engineers have been helpful on Google+, and a bunch of work has been done by Linux kernel maintainers.

This was my starting point: DaveM’s howto in his Linux git repo

1. Get a chromebook pixel
2. Enable developer mode
3. Download the Debian Wheezy netinstall image (yes, it supports the wifi in the installer) (here)
4. Boot from the installer (Ctrl-L at boot screen, escape when it says to press escape to choose a boot device, choose your USB drive with the Debian installer)
5. Install as normal to the internal SSD. I used LVM/encryption and it worked just fine. When you reboot, pull the USB drive and it should boot from the internal SSD.
6. Once booted, the trackpad will not work. A USB mouse will work just great. Download and install my build of the 3.9-rc1 kernel (.deb files and config, full source) built from Linus’ merging of patches and configured with help from Benson Leung
7. To your /etc/modules add:

   ath9k
   atmel_mxt_ts
   chromeos_laptop
   tpm_tis force=1 interrupts=0
   

   Those are the modules for the wifi, the touchpad (both the atmel and chromeos_laptop), and the tpm chip, that to keep it from rebooting when you try to suspend (thanks Duncan Laurie!).

8. This is no longer necessary with the updated downloads. To your /etc/rc.local, above exit 0, add echo TSCR > /proc/acpi/wakeup. This is a hack to keep it from waking right up after going to sleep (thanks, Benson Leung!)
9. This appears not to be necessary, actually Create a file called 01i8042 in /etc/pm/sleep.d to properly sleep and wake the keyboard on suspend. It should have this as its contents.

   #!/bin/sh
   
   ###############################################################################
   # Pm-utils script to unbind i8042 on hibernate/suspend and
   # bind it on thaw/resume.
   #
   # Copyright: Copyright (c) 2009 Nicolay Doytchev
   # License:   GPL-3
   ###############################################################################
   
   ###############################################################################
   # INSTALL:
   #   1. Copy this script to /etc/pm/sleep.d/
   #   2. Make it executable:
   #       sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/01i8042
   #
   # UNINSTALL:
   #   1. Delete the script from /etc/pm/sleep.d/
   #       sudo rm /etc/pm/sleep.d/01i8042
   ###############################################################################
   
   case "$1" in
       hibernate|suspend)
           echo -n "i8042" > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/i8042/unbind
       ;;
       thaw|resume)
           echo -n "i8042" > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/i8042/bind
       ;;
   esac
   

   Make it executable. Found this here

10. You may need to install the firmware-atheros package for the bluetooth to work, which may require adding non-free to the end of the deb lines in /etc/apt/sources.list

I think that’s it, but it’s always hard to correctly recreate these things after the fact without redoing it (and I’ve spent enough time on this already). Let me know if you have any problems or improvements, or go comment on Linus’ G+ post about it.

I want to add a special thank-you to Linus Torvalds for posting about his updates on Google+.

EDIT: More stuff
First, if you hate tap-to-click like me, here’s an xorg.conf with the correct dpi setup and multi-finger click.

Here is a folder containing all the relevant files and info (plus my other configs I decide to upload) discussed in this post and the comments.

Also, FYI the keyboard backlight does not come on after suspend right now.

EDIT 2013-03-11 20:33 MDT: By the way, if you run i3 or some other nerdy window manager like me, and you forgot how to make Debian sleep when the lid is closed, you just need to uncomment the appropriate line in /etc/default/acpi-support.