Speaker and Touchpad support up and running on Acer 514 / Rorick

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[SUCCESS] Acer Chromebook Plus 514 (Rorick / Alderlake-N) - Full Hardware Success on Fedora

System Details

  • Device: Rorick (Acer Chromebook Plus 514 [CB514-3H/3HT] / Alderlake-N)

  • OS: Fedora Workstation 43

  • Firmware Type: UEFI Full ROM (Custom Coreboot Payload)

  • Firmware Version: MrChromebox-2512.2 (2025-12-02)

  • Internal storage type: NVMe using the standard Kingston card that goes to sleep in a ton of distros, which is maddening

Summary of the Issue

The goal was a “minimum hassle” bring-up to verify working hardware on the Acer Chromebook Plus 514. On older LTS-based distributions (like Linux Mint), the Alderlake-N architecture is a nightmare due to outdated audio frameworks and kernel versioning. Moving to Fedora Workstation solved the core compatibility issues immediately.

Note: This setup does not solve the known S3/Deep Sleep suspend issue for Alderlake-N (battery drain with lid closed), but for users who prioritize functional audio/trackpad over sleep states, this is the most direct path to a working machine. I really don’t care about this. I simply had a Chromebook that I want to have as an always on client.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Hardware WP Removal: Use a SuzyQable (SuzyQ) debugging cable (sourced via eBay). Connect to the debug USB-C port and use CCD commands to disable Hardware Write Protect. This is significantly easier than opening the chassis for battery-disconnect methods on this specific model. The card is weirdly unidirection, and I had to flip it over.

  2. Firmware: Flash the MrChromebox-2512.2 UEFI Full ROM payload using the standard script provided at mrchromebox.tech. Get an LLM to help you curl directly once you work through it.

  3. OS Choice: Use Fedora Workstation. The trackpad and audio codecs (sof-rt5650) are recognized natively by the newer kernel, avoiding the dependency hell and “missing module” errors found on older distros. I tried a bunch of others, and you either need to go way back, which gets around sleep issues, or forward. Thus the workstation, which solved my audio.

  4. Trackpad Fix: Fedora’s libinput requires a pressure override to function correctly. Create the following file at /etc/libinput/local-overrides.quirks:

[Touchpad Pressure Override]
MatchUdevType=touchpad
MatchName=*Touchpad*
AttrPressureRange=10:8
AttrResolutionHint=31x31
  1. Audio Fix: Run the standard Chromebook audio script to set up the UCM configuration:

Bash

sudo dnf install git -y && git clone [https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio](https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio) && cd chromebook-linux-audio && ./setup-audio
  1. The “Silent Success” Trap: After rebooting, the hardware is mapped but usually muted at the hardware level. Run alsamixer -c 0 in the terminal, scroll to the right to find Speaker or Master, and press M to unmute (look for the [OO] indicator) and raise the volume sliders.

Expected Behavior

Full trackpad functionality and audio output on the Acer 514. While the suspend bug remains, this provides a stable environment where the core hardware (Sound, Input, Wi-Fi) is fully operational without wrestling with custom kernel compiles or broken dependencies. I’m sure I’ll find something wrong, but I used this website as a “must have” or I would have been totally lost. So, this is my add.

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Additional note. Getting input to work was quite confusing. I wanted to see if I could Handy speech to text working. It doesn’t auto paste, but Handy is working.

Fedora 43 / Acer Chromebook 514 (Rorick) Handy Voice-to-Text Setup

1. Hardware Audio Initialization (Alderlake-N Recipes)

Chromebook audio is not “plug-and-play” on Linux. I had to install the specific UCM (Use Case Manager) recipes to bridge the DSP to ALSA. Probably the big helps to make everything come alive.

  • Repo: https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio
  • Action: ```bash
    cd chromebook-linux-audio
    sudo ./setup-audio

For those unfamiliar with Linux Fedora uses basically 3 layers:

Component Role Analogy
ALSA Driver The physical copper wires and the headphone jack.
PipeWire Server The invisible studio engineer who routes all the cables.
pavucontrol Interface The physical mixing board with sliders and labels.

Once you have all the right layers, you can bring up pavucontrol and see what the apps are using, which is really cool. For example, on Handy you use pipewire as the input. If you have pavucontrol open when trigger text input, the mixer shows you that Handy is taking in input. Now it goes away when not using the mic, but great to see it pop up to confirm the wiring is correct. And the wiring is the issue. The problem is you are normally stuck with the default, which is totally inappropriate for driving complicated sound drivers, or you could do “pro-audio” which has a 100 settings and patches. The recipes solve all this, and give you something useful by changing the default to an Alderlake-n recipe. Without this, it would have been forever for me to figure it out.