SUMMARYAndy Nguyen has stopped work on the PS5 Linux project after Sony patched an exploit used to run Linux on PlayStation 5 consoles. The project had enabled Steam games and emulators on PS5 hardware and was aimed at adding PS5 Pro support, but Nguyen said he is stepping away from the scene.
"In April this year, we saw Andy Nguyen turning the PS5 into a Linux-powered gaming PC," writes the blog It's FOSS.
It ran Steam games and emulators using the PS5's on-board hardware. But this week Andy announced he's "stopping all my work on PS5 Linux" and "stepping away from the PS5 scene." stopping work on porting the project to the PS5 Pro, which would've shipped sometime in 2027.
Andy Nguyen: After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it's all down the sink.
The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don't even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony. I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy Linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.
Or, as It's FOSS tells it:
Running Linux on a PlayStation console is possible because the PS5 Linux project was able to find a way past the hypervisor using exploits Sony had already patched, covering firmware 3.00 through 7.61. ..
[The bug's discoverer writes it was] found with what he calls his "trusty ai clanker machine" and no help from anyone else. He had even agreed to Andy's request to not disclose the findings. Unexpectedly, a third person, still unnamed, found the same bug using AI a few hours later. Anticipating that there would be more people finding the same bug, [he] decided to post the flaw on HackerOne. The project's GitHub page and all the related repositories are still there. Nothing has been archived as of today, and if you wanted to, you could start contributing to the PS5 Linux project by taking over any pending work or cooking up new improvements... The PS5 Pro support Andy was building never reached the repository, so you would have to start from scratch... While Andy's departure is a blow to the plan for supporting newer PS5 firmware and the PS5 Pro, other contributors have shown that they can deliver work on the loader without him, and I am hopeful more will follow.