Nexus Q Revival

Google Nexus Q / Steelhead

Nexus Q Revival

A modern Debian 13 and Linux 6.6 bring-up for the abandoned spherical streaming device, validated on real hardware with Wi-Fi, SSH, and TAS5713 audio.

Download v0.1.0<br>Flash Guide

Why

A strange device deserves a second boot.

Google introduced Nexus Q at I/O 2012 as a $299 Android-controlled social streaming device for the living room. The consumer launch was postponed soon after, leaving a small population of preview units and a lot of unused hardware.

This project turns that hardware into a modern embedded Linux audio target, with a path toward a custom Android control app and network music streaming.

Current State

Validated on hardware

Kernel<br>Linux 6.6.142<br>No-SMP OMAP4 boot path via fastboot.

Distro<br>Debian 13.5<br>armhf rootfs on sparse ext4 userdata.

Network<br>Wi-Fi + SSH<br>BCM4330 loads from rootfs firmware and owner calibration.

Audio<br>TAS5713 ALSA<br>48 kHz stereo PCM opens on hw:0,0.

What Changed

From artifact to bring-up platform.

Ported a Steelhead device tree for OMAP4, TAS5713, McBSP2, USB gadget, and BCM4330 SDIO.

Added a Linux 6.6 ASoC machine driver for the internal speaker amplifier path.

Built a Debian loader and minimal rootfs init with USB serial, auto-fastboot recovery, Wi-Fi startup, and Dropbear.

Moved public Wi-Fi from embedded private blobs to modular `brcmfmac` plus first-boot calibration extraction.

Release

v0.1.0

The first release is intentionally conservative: flash Debian to `userdata`, boot the kernel from RAM, validate, and return to fastboot.

fastboot flash userdata nexusq-debian-trixie-armhf-rootfs.sparse.img<br>fastboot boot nexusq-linux66-omap2plus-nosmp-audio-wifi-public-debian.img

Google I/O 2012 launch post<br>Launch postponement coverage<br>Source repository