I ported Linux to the PS5 and turned it into a Steam Machine

doener 320 points 139 comments March 08, 2026
xcancel.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (11 comments)

gchamonlive

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?

love2read

It's sad to me how exciting it is to run <your own software> on <your own hardware>

tym0

Wonder if the work being done on the BC-250 helped.

imglorp

I wonder how the gpu interface was discovered and ported.

wombat-man

I kinda need a little media server, would love to run it on a ps5

Imustaskforhelp

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!

coolcoder9520

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?

throwawayk7h

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.

RonanSoleste

Now i want an PS5. This makes the thing useful to me

gbraad

We need to liberate the Xbox too, or at least run steam link on them.

yunnpp

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.

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