[HN Gopher] I ported Linux to the PS5 and turned it into a Steam...
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I ported Linux to the PS5 and turned it into a Steam Machine
Author : doener
Score : 299 points
Date : 2026-03-08 12:40 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (xcancel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (xcancel.com)
| gchamonlive wrote:
| It's very interesting but I can't seem to find anymore tech
| details other than you need an older firmware, because you need
| to run a full chain exploit
| (https://www.notebookcheck.net/A-modder-has-successfully-port...)
|
| Also, can you do this and still be able to access the original
| OS? It be nice to run Linux on it, but I'd also need to access my
| PS5 library, so do I need two machines for this?
| IronBacon wrote:
| I don't know if it's related, but a few days ago I've read
| about an update about the mast1c0re exploit that permits to run
| native code (userland) on latest PS5 FW without a kernel
| exploit:
|
| https://xcancel.com/CTurtE/status/2029321988397727776
| love2read wrote:
| It's sad to me how exciting it is to run <your own software> on
| <your own hardware>
| basilgohar wrote:
| This has always been the hacker spirit. Make things designed to
| do one thing do another thing. If it's against the hardware
| maker's intentions or just completely outside their
| expectation, even better!
| tw04 wrote:
| I don't think he's making a comment on the hacker spirit.
| He's making a comment on the fact that it has somehow become
| not just commmon, but accepted that a vendor can tell us and
| force us to use something in the way they want.
|
| Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver,
| but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever,
| under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was
| stricly to be used for installing or removing screws.
|
| We would all laugh that vendor out of the room and tell them
| they're insane. Somehow we stopped doing that with all sorts
| of newer technologies.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Clearly, no "we" did not, as evidenced by running Linux on
| a ps5.
| tw04 wrote:
| So society laughed at Sony for restricting the OS on the
| PS5 and refused to buy it? Because I'm pretty sure one
| person going through a ridiculous effort to install linux
| isn't reflective of society rejecting the restriction.
|
| 92.2M units sold, as of today 1 unit? running Linux.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| "Society rejecting the restriction" huh? Someone proved
| you wrong, you need more than one person to do it now?
| Goal posts, moved.
|
| Not everything needs to have political, teenage angst
| applied to it.
| tw04 wrote:
| Political teenage angst? Is English not your native
| language? One person taking an action isn't reflective of
| society collectively rejecting something. This isn't an
| opinion up for debate.
|
| 90M+ consoles sold is proof society has completely
| accepted the idea of a locked ecosystem with hardware
| they don't get to control.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| You're bitching about society accepting something.
| Teenage angst. You're nailing it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > as of today 1 unit? running Linux.
|
| I think you are misinterpreting that number. It would be
| better read as "as of today, the _first_ PS5 running
| Linux ". There were people running racks of PS3s as Linux
| servers back in the day not as gaming stations but
| compute using its hardware. People will do crazy things.
| Do not write them off.
| Uvix wrote:
| Those PS3s were sold with official Linux support, so
| running racks of them wasn't quite as crazy as it might
| have sounded at first.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Until Sony revoked the ability to do that, so people went
| back in to hack them so they could go back to running
| Linux
| musicale wrote:
| They shut it down due to (likely valid) concerns that it
| could potentially be leveraged to jailbreak the regular
| PS3 OS and/or run unlicensed commercial games.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head
| screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could
| never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry
| something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or
| removing screws.
|
| Try filing a warranty claim if it bends, the manufacturer
| will go and tell you to kick rocks.
| figassis wrote:
| That is fine, they're not required to support unexpected
| use cases. Not the same as forbidding you from using it
| as you see fit. It's simple really, they can do what they
| want with their resources, you can do what you want with
| yours, especially those you paid for.
| LoganDark wrote:
| But you only have a license to use the screwdriver, it's
| still their property. You aren't entitled to free use of
| someone else's property, of course. Just because it's in
| your possession doesn't mean it's yours!
|
| (This is supposed to be satire but feels scarily accurate
| anyway.)
| knollimar wrote:
| Everytime I use an Autodesk product (6days a week) I
| lament this court case.
|
| The whole set of software IP rules seems like mental
| gymnastics to justify a career (that I like, support, and
| benefit from) rather than rules that come from axioms or
| ethics that make sense.
| jonhohle wrote:
| Isn't OP doing just that? A few more hoops through, but
| it's not like Sony is going to sue... oh, wait, if he
| tells anyone else how to do it they might.
| basilgohar wrote:
| I totally understand. But I think these artificial
| restrictions inspire that rebellious spirit in hackers to
| circumvent and see what's possible.
| lopis wrote:
| But this has always been the case. The circumvention
| protections certainly became more sophisticated as hardware
| and software evolved.
| advael wrote:
| Yes, now they involve calling the cops to enforce a law
| that microsoft lawyers wrote and then sent lobbyists to
| bully or trick most of the world into signing. The
| corruption of the rule of law in modern nation-states
| into effectively brutal mafia-style enforcement of
| otherwise untenable business models certainly has
| facilitated quite a shift in the hardware multinationals
| use to secure their various unfathomably excessive bags
| TurkTurkleton wrote:
| > it has somehow become not just commmon, but accepted that
| a vendor can tell us and force us to use something in the
| way they want.
|
| The PS5 is a games console and is marketed as such, not a
| general-purpose computer. Of course they want, and "force",
| you to use it to play PS5 games. I have a hard time seeing
| this as coercive when computers still exist, even if
| architecturally a PS5 is virtually identical to a general-
| purpose computer in most of the ways that matter, because
| at least since the Fairchild Channel F, it's always been
| the case that consoles are just constrained computers.
|
| > Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head
| screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could
| never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry
| something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or
| removing screws.
|
| > We would all laugh that vendor out of the room and tell
| them they're insane. Somehow we stopped doing that with all
| sorts of newer technologies.
|
| Imagine, for instance, if that flat head screwdriver had a
| means to prevent you from using it to pry things open. Some
| kind of magical negative mass in the handle that kicks in
| to cancel out leverage but not torque, or an explosive
| charge that blows your hand off if more than a certain
| amount of force is applied non-rotationally, or something.
| It might seem a little less risible then, and you would
| probably just opt to buy a screwdriver that doesn't have
| such restrictions (especially if those restrictions were
| explosively enforced).
|
| Like, I get it. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the
| argument that we should be able to do whatever we want with
| hardware that we own. At the same time, being upset about
| the PS5 making it impossible to run arbitrary software
| without hacking feels a little like being upset that your
| washing machine doesn't clean your dirty dishes as well as
| it cleans your dirty laundry: it's not made for that, and
| it's not really reasonable to expect it to be able to do
| that well if at all.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| > At the same time, being upset about the PS5 making it
| impossible to run arbitrary software without hacking
| feels a little like being upset that your washing machine
| doesn't clean your dirty dishes as well as it cleans your
| dirty laundry: it's not made for that, and it's not
| really reasonable to expect it to be able to do that well
| if at all.
|
| Except that's so completely _not_ like what 's going on
| with modern hardware. They're taking _general purpose
| computers_ and restricting you from doing _general
| purpose computing_ on them. Like, a dishwasher is made to
| wash dishes. It has a shape and a design made for washing
| dishes. You would need to make physical modifications to
| get it to wash clothes. This is like taking a machine
| that _could_ wash both dishes and clothes and
| intentionally stopping it from washing clothes.
|
| This is not OK. This needs to stop. Soon they'll come for
| our general-purpose computing with "features" for DRM.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > They're taking general purpose computers and
| restricting you from doing general purpose computing on
| them.
|
| But so much tech hardware is commodified. A pregnancy
| test probably isn't using hardware dissimilar to your
| laptop. It just has less of it.
|
| I don't think there's an expectation that every
| electronic is user programmable. But anything that is
| general phrpose should be punished as such for trying to
| put in excessive restrictions. There are arguments for
| game consoles on both aisles, but I don't agree with the
| mentality of "anything with general hardware needs
| general programming ability"
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| To me, the difference between a pregnancy test and a PS5
| is that the pregnancy test isn't programmable at all,
| whereas a PS5 is programmable by people who have paid
| Sony for the privilege, and only at the pleasure of Sony.
| That's the problem.
| musicale wrote:
| It sounds like you don't like Sony's (and Nintendo's
| etc.) business model, which involves charging licensing
| fees to amortize R&D expenses and make money generally.
|
| Sony has had this business model since the original
| PlayStation (1994), but it doesn't seem to have destroyed
| the ability to run Linux on your PC, or to have a Linux-
| based game console like the Steam Deck or Steam Machine.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| Yup, I don't like their business model for the same
| reason that I don't like the business model of Facebook
| or TikTok. Just because consumers should be able to
| choose something harmful to themselves doesn't mean that
| the companies should offer it.
| musicale wrote:
| Is Mario really harmful?
|
| You may also be surprised that some people consider the
| fixed-function design of game consoles to be a positive
| thing.
| musicale wrote:
| Most appliances have fairly general-purpose
| microcontrollers inside them, but expose a fixed-function
| interface. Hopefully things like safety interlocks for
| microwave oven doors are implemented in hardware rather
| than software.
|
| > Soon they'll come for our general-purpose computing
| with "features" for DRM.
|
| You... haven't noticed all of the existing DRM features?
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| Not on my computer. I'm worried that there's a chance
| that someday general-purpose computing hardware will be
| locked down to the same degree that mobile or console
| hardware is today.
| pkilgore wrote:
| It's sad to see someone running doom on a pregnancy tester?
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| No, people might be misreading his comment.
|
| (To me) it seems that, he is saying how bad the situation of
| hardware/lock-in is that we are being excited over being able
| to run our own software on said hardware in the first place
| (Aka the reason why we are here)
|
| Being able to run doom on pregnancy tester is actually good.
| If I paid for the tester, I am gonna use the whole tester to
| run doom (LOL)
|
| So I think this is what they meant.
| threetonesun wrote:
| Or to put it more concretely in this context: Sony used to
| let you run Linux on PlayStations! There were all kinds of
| interesting uses for PS3s outside of gaming that they
| (initially) supported.
| LeFantome wrote:
| I do not own any Sony products and I am not a corporate
| cheerleader.
|
| But "we" have to own that the reason that Sony stopped
| selling/supporting Linux in their machines is because
| "we" used it to circumvent copyright on closed-source
| games. It is the problem with "our" ethics, not theirs
| that led to Linux getting pulled.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| That's BS. Linux/OtherOS on the PS3 only existed so that
| Sony could evade European tariffs on pure gaming consoles
| that were markedly higher than on general-purpose
| computers. Once the tariffs went, so went OtherOS
| support.
|
| In any case OtherOS didn't have access to the full system
| resources and, on top of that, Sony actually lost money
| on PS3s because it was priced as a loss-leader, with game
| purchases being supposed to earn the actual money.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Actually it was a bit more nuanced.
|
| After Yaroze, Sony thought PS2Linux would bring some
| indies into PS2, instead it got full of MAME and other
| emulators, hence why PS3 no longer offered graphics
| acceleration.
| wat10000 wrote:
| That entailed overcoming inherent technical problems, not
| roadblocks placed by the manufacturer with the intent of
| making it harder than it needs to be. It's like the
| difference between climbing a mountain and breaking into a
| locked building.
| jsemrau wrote:
| We need to bring back this culture.
| LeFantome wrote:
| Did it go somewhere?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Right? They're asking that question on a forum dedicated to
| the subject that has been around for nearly two decades.
| The entirety of Silicon Valley was born in people's
| garages. Not really sure where it's meant to come back from
| rvz wrote:
| The problem is that the 'developers' you are seeing today
| are not the same from the 90s that have that hacker
| mindset and curiosity.
|
| Instead, it has been hijacked by those who have never
| opened a PC before or were never interested in the field
| to begin with and saw it as a VC vehicle get-rich-quick
| scheme infiltrated by tons of grifters.
|
| Once the money dries up post-extraction then they
| (grifters) abandon the field to the true 'hackers' still
| in the field doing clever projects like this one.
| dylan604 wrote:
| To me, the difference is that "hackers" has become
| focused on software. The early days in SV they had to
| invent the hardware. Now, hardware is commodity, and it
| has a novel idea for a hardware hacker to make the news.
| The Zuck hacked his first iterations of what became
| Facebook together. Apps like Snapchat and what not are
| just software hacked together using the hardware in novel
| ways. Things like Flipper0 are interesting hardware from
| hackers. Some interesting things find their way to the
| crowd funding sites that ultimately die on the vine.
| Sites for 3D printing show there are still some
| mechanical hardware types that still tinker.
|
| Overall, it just shows that the hacker ethos never went
| any where. It's just younger people being exposed and
| thinking it's something new.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Witness all of the people who, when you suggest that there
| is demand for open hardware products, show up to tell you
| that ordinary people don't care about that so STFU nerd. As
| if they're afraid someone would actually offer it.
|
| The problem, of course, is that ordinary people don't care
| _at first_ , because at first the collar is only installed
| around your neck and not yet used to shock you, and people
| with no eye for the future say, what's the big deal? It's
| just a collar.
|
| It's only after they're around enough necks that people
| start getting zapped for modifying the OS, but even then
| some people will say, it's for your own good, why are you
| defending "hackers"?
|
| Then people start getting shocked for trying to compete
| with the incumbents or expressing unpopular opinions, but
| by that point every device without a collar is some kind of
| obscure Linux Phone with a high price and low specs.
|
| _Now_ you 're at the point where all someone has to do is
| make a competitive device which is otherwise identical to
| the one they were going to make anyway but it doesn't come
| with a shock collar and ordinary people will want it
| because they're tired of getting screwed. But the same
| critics will show up to say that ordinary people don't care
| about that and point to the fact that they didn't when it
| was first being rolled out and nobody was getting
| electrocuted yet.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Society took away a lot of the free time enjoyed decades
| earlier. We're working harder and longer hours for less pay
| than we have in some 50 years.
|
| I'd love to do stuff like this but am still looking for a
| job. Let alone one with proper work life balances.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Most computers in the world don't need the ability to have
| their operating system changed or run custom user built
| software. Consumers will be fine with the preexisting software
| and such a feature is unneeded complexity that almost no one
| will use.
| realusername wrote:
| If consumers are fine with the pre-existing software and will
| never try to use anything else, why do we lock them out
| though?
|
| Something doesn't add up.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >why do we lock them out though?
|
| It reduces security, expands attack surface, reputational
| damage from people complaining about their phones bricking
| doing something unsupported.
| tavavex wrote:
| That's how all these vendors justify their actions once
| they decide it's time to kill off their competition and
| impose arbitrary limitations. But how real is this
| "damage", actually? How big do you think the overlap
| between 'users who want to install custom operating
| systems', 'users who have no idea what they're doing' and
| 'users who would loudly complain after an obvious mistake
| on their own part' is? The #1 source of reputational
| damage for vendors is people breaking something within
| their controlled environments. The bar to run a custom OS
| is already so high for average people that it will never
| matter or be a social engineering attack vector, just
| because of how niche it is. We've been able to run
| anything on PCs for over 40 years, custom firmware for
| phones goes back at least 25 years, and despite all of
| this, the world hasn't gone up in flames yet. The
| security pressure exists, but it's minimal compared to
| everything else. The real reasons are profit-driven.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Most computers in the world don't need the ability to have
| their operating system changed or run custom user built
| software.
|
| That's not true? Nearly every laptop, desktop, and server can
| trivially run whatever OS+software, of course, but also
| _currently at least_ virtually all Android devices can run
| arbitrary user built /supplied software (I grant that,
| unfortunately, replacing the OS is often harder). Embedded
| stuff varies, but frequently anything capable of running a
| general purpose OS (which IMHO is generally the line to call
| it a "computer") can have it replaced.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Being able to play Doom on a microwave has novelty because
| microwave manufacturers don't support running random
| software on their microwaves since they are optimizing the
| product to be a microwave.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| I HATE this argument. If the PC had been locked down like
| smartphones are today, we would never have had Linux on the
| desktop.
|
| Also, replace "consumers" by "people" who might need to
| control their devices to do things that may be against the
| interests of the manufacturer, like removing ads and
| surveillance.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >we would never have had Linux on the desktop.
|
| In such an alternate timeline there may be another
| operating system even better than Linux.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| we would never have had Linux at all
|
| Maybe sco and similar would have managed to fight against
| windows, but i suspect online would be decades behind what
| it is without the freedom we knew in the 80s and 90s that
| so many HN pundits are salivating to grow away.
|
| Maybe a minitel system would be better - we would t have
| the problems of social media at least.
| LeFantome wrote:
| I get what you are saying. But this always would have been
| exciting.
|
| This is like a post saying someone got Apple Basic running on
| their Commodore 64.
| SecretDreams wrote:
| Agree with both you and OP.
|
| Hardware we buy should be open to be modified easily with a
| common open source scheme - but any modifications should void
| warranty.
|
| At the same time, we don't live in that world and so this
| post and the work done is still cool and exciting.
| andai wrote:
| More like if Commodore used to sell an official Apple Basic
| package and then stopped:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2
| buran77 wrote:
| PlayStation 3 similarly had the option to run alternative
| operating systems, virtualized [1]. I remember running
| Yellow Dog Linux on a couple of PS3s. (edit. just found the
| YDL 5.0, 6.0, and 6.2 buried somewhere on my NAS).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS
| dmoy wrote:
| And sadly it's only going to get harder and harder. More stuff
| is going to get locked down - not just PCs and PC-adjacent
| stuff like PS/XBox/etc.
|
| It's already somewhat involved to get new firmware on a lot of
| network connected home devices you buy, but it'll become even
| more difficult.
|
| 3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via
| legislation.
|
| Tractors.... _gestures wildly at Deere_
|
| You can't fix software problems in your dishwasher or fridge.
|
| Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/
| wolrah wrote:
| > Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/
|
| That's the official line a lot of the vendors responsible
| will push, but the evidence for that is...lacking.
|
| Compare that to the simple reality that doing this is more
| profitable and devices that can't be easily repaired lead to
| more consistent sales. Capitalism gonna capitalism.
| dmoy wrote:
| Yea I don't doubt that capitalist greed goes into it too.
|
| And in the case of true fear of liability lawsuits, _even
| that_ also has capitalist greed undertones:
|
| Imagine you're building random-iot-device-with-a-lithium-
| battery. You could:
|
| 1. Build the whole thing so it's easily hackable
|
| Your lawyers point out prior art in liability cases around
| exploding/burning lithium-powered-devices and won't really
| approve release without some precautionary measures
|
| 2. Properly isolate and test the battery and related
| systems, ensure they can't possibly overheat even in the
| face of arbitrary input _from the rest of the system, if
| modified_. Lock down the battery parts, leave everything
| else open.
|
| 3. Do some testing on the whole-ass system to assuage your
| lawyers, and then lock the whole thing down
|
| 3 is typically cheaper, a lot of companies then open door 3
| instead of 2.
|
| Capitalism and liability lawsuits tag teaming here imo
|
| Side note, the reason we have a litigious society imo is
| because most companies reach for door #4
|
| 4. Yolo, release unsafe product even with company's own
| firmware, fires and explosions ensue, people are maimed and
| die, lawsuits follow. Because lawsuits are the only
| recourse, we don't hold the companies criminally liable or
| anything.
| hapless wrote:
| You don't have to actually _do_ #3. What most companies
| do is just get a UL certification (to reassure consumers)
| and put the label "no user-serviceable parts inside" on
| the case (to meet UL mandates for safety)
|
| That's more than enough to avoid civil liability for user
| stupidity
|
| Locking shit down is something you do for other reasons
| entirely
| drnick1 wrote:
| > Capitalism gonna capitalism.
|
| Then respond with more capitalism and don't buy devices
| that are not user-serviceable.
|
| - Buy a PC instead of a PS5/Xbox
|
| - Buy appliances that are compatible with Home Assistant,
| or stick to "dumb" devices
|
| - Refuse to connect to the Internet devices such as TVs and
| cars that do not strictly need it, regardless of
| "convenience"
|
| - Reject proprietary software and apps
|
| - Only buy phones whose bootloader is unlockable, so that
| the stock OS can be replaced by something user-controlled
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I've done all those at some point. But the lions share of
| people aren't even aware these issues exist. Many when
| brought up don't care.
|
| This isn't really an issue where capitalism prevails in
| favor of the user like with some privacy issues. We need
| legislation to pass.
| segmondy wrote:
| well, not if this AI stuff pans out. AI will be reversing
| engineering and making things easy. ;-)
| MrGilbert wrote:
| If the current trend continues, there won't be much left to
| reverse engineer, as your appliances will use the internet
| for computation, as RAM and processing power are consumed
| by AI data centers, so...
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I think what happens is corporate lawyers know their job is
| to make the boss happy and look good, so once in a while they
| have brainstorming sessions where they think of ways to use
| their toolset (knowledge and authority in legal matters) to
| accomplish that goal. And that usually takes the form of
| telling the boss he can screw customers or workers in some
| way, with a legal pretext as rhetorical cover, to save the
| company a nickel.
|
| > _Hey boss, as your attorney I think we should ban employees
| from ever leaning on things because what if one of them got a
| spinal injury from leaning too much? We could be liable for
| permitting leaning when they could be cleaning._
| hedora wrote:
| More customers need to sue for the right to repair things
| that have substandard firmware.
|
| That should especially include cars and phones, with 10x min
| damages if a vendor or insurance company falsely claims
| firmware modifications were at fault if problems arise.
|
| (So, if you turn off unnecessary cabin beeping, and then get
| in an accident and the insurance company rejects because of
| "unauthorized modifications", then they pay you and the other
| party at least 10x actual damages if they end up losing in
| court.)
|
| Vendor retaliation (undismissable nag screens, force pushed
| regressions and compatibility breaks) should have even higher
| damages.
|
| This would immediately enable people to run secure, open
| variants of android, and also mod their iPhones.
| redbell wrote:
| > It's already somewhat involved to get new firmware on a lot
| of _network connected home devices_ you buy, but it 'll
| become even more difficult.
|
| We now have the _network effect_ affecting devices too :)
| Duwensatzaj wrote:
| > 3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via
| legislation.
|
| That's specific to Democrat controlled states, unlike age
| verification requirements. They've decided to treat everyone
| like prisoners rather than imprison criminals.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/
|
| Are we sure about this? I always thought that if you modify
| something and the modification injures you then the OEM
| shouldn't be liable. This sounds like a shallow dig at
| liability.
| RobRivera wrote:
| Why sad?
| stavros wrote:
| Because it should be a given and super boring.
| sejje wrote:
| Particularly when we were already doing this in the late
| 90s with the original Xbox. I ran debian on mine.
|
| I would have thought we'd have soft-mods to allow this
| within a couple weeks of any new console launch, and
| perhaps the hardware vendors would even be supporting it by
| now.
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, but alas, since they sell the hardware at a loss,
| they really don't want you using it for anything that's
| not "buy games from us".
|
| I was really looking forward to the Steam Machine but the
| RAM shortage ruined their plans.
| sejje wrote:
| Same. I'm still going to get one someday.
|
| I want to support gaming on linux, and the steam machine
| was what made it great.
| stavros wrote:
| Oh I'm definitely getting the whole suite, just to
| support them. I don't even game that much (though the
| Steam deck made me game much more).
| jama211 wrote:
| It's pretty rare that you actively cant, but it makes sense a
| lot of businesses wouldn't bother to try and assist you with
| doing that. But some definitely don't want you to, and I get
| that that's sad. Always makes space for a competitor though!
| 6SixTy wrote:
| It's unfortunately par for the course for something like a
| console to be like this. Consoles are often subsidized by
| licensing and publishing costs of games, so preventing you from
| running your own software is within their best interest.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I mean, the hardware is sold at a loss so it makes perfect
| sense.
| whycome wrote:
| I absolutely hate the design of the "app store" which means
| that you can't revert to an older version when you find out the
| new one changes a critical feature that you used previously.
| tym0 wrote:
| Wonder if the work being done on the BC-250 helped.
| jhoho wrote:
| I would guess so, as the BC-250 is basically a PS5 with 24
| instead of 36 CUs. For the curious:
| https://github.com/mothenjoyer69/bc250-documentation I would
| guess that he could leverage the APU support that was merged
| with Mesa 25.1.
| imglorp wrote:
| I wonder how the gpu interface was discovered and ported.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Not a direct answer, but this seems to be the PR for adding PS5
| support to Mesa: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/mer
| ge_requests/40..., seems it's just oneline change of
| AMDGPU_GFX1013_RANGE, not sure if it's a UI bug or what.
| Aurornis wrote:
| It has an AMD RDNA2 GPU. It might have some small
| specializations but it's going to be 99% the same as other
| RDNA2 GPUs.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| According to the open source drivers, it's closer to
| RDNA1+RT. Missing features of RDNA2 like mesh shaders.
|
| https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/11982
| 360MustangScope wrote:
| Look up the BC-250, it is the PS5 but was created for mining.
| You can get these very cheap on eBay.
| wombat-man wrote:
| I kinda need a little media server, would love to run it on a ps5
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Linux on PS5 seems absolutely amazing.
|
| Anybody running any AI models using the GPU of PS5 or using the
| ram (16GB).
|
| PS5 is probably sold at a loss/bare minimum profit to turn profit
| during the gaming product itself, not the hardware as compared to
| the steam machine
|
| So running Linux on PS5 is so freaking cool. Gonna have to share
| this article with my brother who owns one.
|
| This reminds me of that time when US govt. bought over 1700* (see
| derektank's comment) PS3 or similar and hooked them up all
| together to make a supercomputer because this way it costed them
| less than having a computer themselves and Today's ram prices
| being 5 times higher in such short term is yea.
|
| PS5 hacking community feels really cool!
| derektank wrote:
| The Air Force Research Lab's "Condor Cluster" was actually
| composed of over 1700 PS3
|
| https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/114782/plays...
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Thanks, I have updated the comment. I had thought that it was
| 200 but its actually 1700 and also for the official link.
|
| From the link that you shared:
|
| It's currently the seventh-greenest computer in the world, he
| said.
|
| "This particular system is about half a petaflop, or capable
| of about 500 trillion calculations per second," he said. "In
| the current time that we can measure it, it's about the 35th-
| or 36th-fastest computer in the world, and with some things
| that are going to be changing in the next eight or nine
| months with some upgrades, we could boost it to maybe the
| 20th-fastest computer in the world, and at the same time make
| it, at that moment in time, the greenest computer."
|
| Do you feel like something like this can again be possible
| with Linux being ported to PS5 now? I don't quite understand
| why sony would remove the linux feature from ps4 if this was
| something that the govt. was benefitting from. I assume that
| the govt. must have put some pressure to still allow linux on
| ps4/ps5 given that it was benefitting from it in the past?
| LeFantome wrote:
| Sony removed Linux as an option because people used it to
| pirate games.
| sunaookami wrote:
| No they didn't, you couldn't run games since you had no
| access to the GPU. The whole exploiting and homebrew CFW
| shenanigangs followed after Sony (illegally) removed the
| option for OtherOS.
| ndiddy wrote:
| OtherOS originally existed so Sony could claim the PS3
| was a computer, which put it into a lower tariff category
| than a game console in Europe. They never offered it on
| the PS3 _Slim_ (launched in September 2009) because by
| that point Sony had gotten the price on the system down
| enough that the difference in taxes didn 't matter to
| them, but they continued supporting it on the PS3 _Fat_.
| This was all legal because Sony never advertised OtherOS
| support on the Slim.
|
| Sony only removed OtherOS on the Fat after George Hotz
| discovered and published an exploit that allowed users to
| break out of the OtherOS sandbox and gain full control
| over the PS3. This allowed running custom firmware and
| pirating games with a bit of additional work. Sony judged
| that they couldn't patch the exploit without disabling
| access to OtherOS entirely, so that's what they did. Hotz
| announced his exploit in January 2010 (https://web.archiv
| e.org/web/20100129034435/http://geohotps3....), the
| Yellow Dog Linux team posted a rumor that Sony was
| getting rid of OtherOS in February 2010
| (https://www.xtremeps3.com/2010/02/20/rumor-alert-
| otheros-to-...), and Sony officially announced the
| removal of OtherOS due to security concerns in late March
| 2010 (https://blog.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmwar
| e-v3-21-u...). As you say, this removal was later found
| to be illegal in court.
| hamdingers wrote:
| They removed it because they lost money on every console
| sold unless you also bought some games. When
| governments/universities started buying thousands to use
| in compute clusters without buying a single game, it
| stopped being worth it.
|
| They added it to avoid game console specific tariffs, so
| they must have run the numbers and realized paying those
| would cost less than subsidizing a bunch of clusters.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| My recollection / impression was that Sony was quite
| happy to lose game sales on thousands of PS3s because
| "used to make super computers" was a marketting win for
| them. They were used in this role for several years until
| Sony started trying to roll it back immediately following
| the publication of game piracy related developments that
| in part used OtherOS vulnerabilities.
| ronsor wrote:
| And all Sony got in return was people exploiting their
| consoles harder and pirating games more.
| bsimpson wrote:
| If you read through the comments on the thread, that's actually
| why this works.
|
| AMD sold binned PS5 chips to crytomining endeavors. They resold
| the boards on eBay for cheap. So there's a history of people
| tinkering with rejected PS5 chips from cheap eBay purchases.
| That work lead to amdgpu/Mesa support, which is why this guy
| has raytracing on a real PS5.
|
| https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/11982
| iberator wrote:
| can't pass the link. something about spam on the wiki. no
| read only mode?!
| bsimpson wrote:
| GitLab is weird. Reloading often works.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Asrock sold a mining rig using reject PS5 APUs, called the
| BC-250. They're readily available on the used market, although
| the prices have doubled over the last six months, as is the
| case worth anything that has a reasonable amount of RAM.
|
| They're binned down a little from the production PS5, but even
| at full power it's bit the best bang for the buck. For a model
| that needs 16 GB of RAM, a $100 used AMD Mi25 is the cheapest
| way to go, and a $200 used 16GB Intel A770 scales that up, at
| around double the performance for around double the price.
| Fnoord wrote:
| From 2021: 3800 PS4 in Ukraine, thought to be a cryptocurrency
| farm. Was actually a FIFA bot farm. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.eurogamer.net/ukraine-warehouse-packed-with-
| thou...
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| The story leaves me wanting - how did the economics play out
| for them? If you have an automated PS5, how much virtual
| currency can you grind and what is the going rate for it?
| What is the break-even point on a $500 console + 200W(??)
| 24/7.
|
| I naively think that there are not many people willing to buy
| coins off of a shady website. Especially since I think the
| people who are most likely to want to cheat an edge are
| teenagers with limited funds. Would also expect that the bots
| are a glowing aberration vs standard player behavior.
| nottorp wrote:
| Ever since online games had virtual items in them there
| have been virtual item farmers and sellers.
|
| Someone does buy these items, otherwise there wouldn't be
| spam about RMT everywhere inside online games and on some
| web sites about these online games.
| Fnoord wrote:
| These were PS4 Slim, not PS5.
|
| IIRC they were sitting next to the energy company, tapped
| illegal electricity, and hidden that fact (the energy
| company's involvement was under investigation). Criminals
| don't play fair.
|
| Diablo 3 was one of the earlier games having RMT, and they
| let community decide to keep or remove it, as it wasn't
| profitable due to the massive amount of fraud and CS
| requirement.
|
| Later on, two mobile Blizzard games had RMT and then closed
| shop: Hearthstone Mercenaries, and Warcraft Rumble. I
| played both, and fool me once...
| croes wrote:
| If your brother's PS5 isn't on Firmware 2.x or below he is out
| of luck and it won't work.
|
| > Nguyen said the setup only works with a full chain exploit
| such as Byepervisor, which is aimed at older firmware. The
| public Byepervisor repository says that support for PS5
| firmware in the 1.xx to 2.xx range
|
| https://videocardz.com/newz/modder-turns-playstation-5-into-...
| coolcoder9520 wrote:
| Impressive work, especially getting the GPU drivers stable enough
| for Steam. The PS5's custom I/O complex (that hardware
| decompression unit) must have been a headache to work around --
| did you end up bypassing it entirely or did you manage to get any
| of that throughput exposed to Linux?
|
| I'm curious about thermal behavior under sustained load. The
| PS5's cooling is tuned tightly to the stock firmware's power
| envelope; running arbitrary Linux workloads probably hits
| different thermal profiles. Did you see throttling during long
| gaming sessions, or is the headroom sufficient when you're not
| pushing the RSX equivalent?
| Aurornis wrote:
| Linux and GPU drivers had already been ported to the BC-250,
| which was a binned down variant of the PS5 processor.
|
| The driver change to support the actual PS5 was a 1-line fix to
| make it recognize the slightly different GPU ID on the PS5
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| That doesn't really answer these questions.
| Aurornis wrote:
| As far as I can tell the Twitter poster hasn't answered any
| of the hard questions either. Just the screenshots and some
| comments, but I also don't have time to go through the
| hundreds of comments in that thread.
|
| He did post the 1-line patch for Mesa to add GPU support
| like I said above: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa
| /-/merge_requests/40...
| 6SixTy wrote:
| BC-250 had a standard set of SuperIO and Southbridge, and the
| PS5 has a duo consisting of a custom NVMe controller and
| custom SuperIO. If what is true from the PS4 is applicable to
| the PS5, there had to have been some patches to the kernel in
| order to add platform support for those custom chips.
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| There are a lot of ps5 hardware features like shared memory
| between cpu and gpu which I'm not sure games could take advantage
| of without being specially coded for it.
| Rohansi wrote:
| Shared memory between CPU and GPU isn't exclusive to consoles.
| All (?) integrated GPUs do it. Mobile devices, PCs, Apple
| Silicon, it's all the same.
|
| The only big difference is consoles have the CPU using GDDR
| memory (what dedicated GPUs use) instead of typical DDR. You're
| not going to need to code anything differently for that but it
| will have different performance characteristics.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| I think you very much want to code differently if you were to
| target gddr instead of ddr. Unless you were only working at a
| high-level of course, but it would significantly influence eg
| the rendering engine
| vzaliva wrote:
| Is it something wihch would make PS5 attractive to run local
| LLM models? I've heard Mac Mini shared CPU/GPU memory makes
| it popular for that.
| bigyabai wrote:
| No, unified memory is not a panacea. The PS5 GPU is mostly
| raster-focused and doesn't have good acceleration options
| outside Vulkan compute.
|
| Your best ~$300-400 option for inference is still the RTX
| 3060 AFAIK.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| The Mac studio also comes with up to 512GiB RAM.
|
| The PS5 only has 8GiB.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is how every iGPU and embedded SoC with a GPU work. It's
| not exotic or something that games need to be specially coded
| to handle.
| RonanSoleste wrote:
| Now i want an PS5. This makes the thing useful to me
| rvz wrote:
| Now you want a PS5? What happened to waiting for the Steam
| Machine?
| jayd16 wrote:
| Steam Machines will likely not be $399, for one. But a hacked
| ps5 is hardly a replacement either.
| croes wrote:
| Not easy to find one with a firmware 2.x or below which is
| necessary for this
| gbraad wrote:
| We need to liberate the Xbox too, or at least run steam link on
| them.
| diabllicseagull wrote:
| speaking of xbox, we witnessed a ps5 being used like a pc
| before xbox console-pc hybrid could materialize.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Most people accepted the development sandbox Microsoft
| graciously allowed and turned it into a fairly thriving
| 'homebrew' scene: see the https://xbdev.store/
|
| It's just a shame Sony gatekeeps running any kind of personal
| code on the platform and that access to development tools is a
| total nightmare.
| yunnpp wrote:
| Relevant jailbreak doc: https://thecybersecguru.com/news/ps5-rom-
| keys-leaked/
|
| tl;dr Get a copy of Star Wars: Racer Revenge (ps4) before it goes
| over $200.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| That article is from January 4th, so a bit too late for that
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