Read this article on Chrome and Open Source on Linux:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/09/02/google-unveils-chrome-source-code-and-linux-port
The Google V8 JavaScript Engine is also open source and available here if you want to contribute;
http://code.google.com/p/v8/
If you want to contribute on Chronium, here are the instructions:
http://dev.chromium.org/developers/contributing-code
Chromium is an open-source browser
project that aims to build a safer,
faster, and more stable way for all
Internet users to experience the web.
This site contains design documents,
architecture overviews, testing
information, and more to help you
learn to build and work with the
Chromium source code.
Here is how you can get started:
http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/getting-started
EDIT: Two more questions was added to the original question.
Building on Linux requires the following software:
- Subversion >= 1.4
- pkg-config >= 0.20
- Python >= 2.4
- Perl >= 5.x
- gcc/g++ >= 4.2
- bison >= 2.3
- flex >= 2.5.34
- gperf >= 3.0.3
- libnss3-dev >= 3.12
On Ubuntu 8.04, you can fetch all of the above as follows:
$ sudo apt-get install subversion pkg-config python perl g++ bison flex gperf libnss3-dev
Note: There is no working
Chromium-based browser on Linux.
Although many Chromium submodules
build under Linux and a few unit tests
pass, all that runs is a command-line
"all tests pass" executable.