PS3 Linux is Back on Firmware 3.41 by Graf Chokolo

120w ago - As a follow-up to Kmeaw's PS3 Linux update and his previous work, PlayStation 3 hacker Graf Chokolo has now brought PS3 Linux back to Firmware 3.41.

To quote from xorloser's blog: And here we go Linux is officially back on PS3 3.41. It’s even better now

It has all GameOS features, it has access to all HDD, VFLASH and FLASH regions. It can communicate with Dispatcher Manager, Update Manager, SYSCON Manager, it can run isolated SPUs, and of course RSX

I uploaded some screenshots of the Debian distribution i installed on my PS3 HDD. The Debian distribution is a just normal PPC64 Linux without any modification, all i changed was my dutifully and beloved Hypervisor

I modified the Hypervisor so far that it boots the Linux bootloader petitiboot from VFLASH and petitboot loads the Linux distribution installed on a HDD region.

And what is better than Linux to boot Linux ?

I practically implemented Dual Boot feature GameOS+OtherOS in the Hypervisor Linux is not the only OS which can be booted like this from PS3 HDD.

Now we don’t need GameOS anymore to run our code, no need anymore for SELFs and we can start now programming our own games on PS3 on Linux

I will make everything public

And greetings to SONY Hand me over the maintance and implementation of PS3 Hypervisor I will improve it and maintain for free We all will benefit. HV hacking is great fun

Here are some screenshots:

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PS: Compiling now my own Linux kernel on PS3 itself

Guys, one step after another, first test and implement with 3.41 then port to 3.55

HV is practically the same, don’t worry.

Be patient guys. I will test everything properly and then release. I don’t want to cause any bricks.

CORE OS and GameOS firmware updates are possible now from Linux because we have access to Dispatcher Manager and Update Manager of Hypervisor

Linux can do now everything what GameOS can do Linux rules

We have lots of things to do now E.g. implement Dispatcher Manager in Linux because Linux has only drivers for A/V-Manager and System Manager And ps3 block device driver have to be improved also, because now it allows only one HDD region to be accessed.

I’m not an expert in RSX, that is the only part of HV i didn’t try to reverse yet

With normal Linux environment the possibilities are limitless now I don’t need anymore my payloads, will start to port them, write normal Linux programs ENCDEC and SYSCON are still on my list The HV reversing will progress now a lot faster with Linux.

New Linux driver need to be written and so on.

BTW, guys, does someone has clue how to recompile Debian netinstaller, you will need it Because what i did to make it run was pure hack, not for developers i fear. We need to recompile it with new ps3disk driver.

Yeah, it’s possible to patch HV to skip CORE OS hash checks.

I do not intend to stop. I didn’t even read those docs Better spend my time with HV reversing.

I was thinking about FreeBSD of course, i like it very much And there is already a port to PS3

When $ONY comes after me i will still have enough time to release everything for PS3 devs, don’t worry I do not intend to stop my reversing and development.

Regarding RSX, i think it’ s in LV2 kernel, but not sure, i didn’t reverse LV2 much.

Yes, we can resize/create/delete storage regions. That is what i did to make the VFLASH region larger in order to be able to store there petitboot uncompressed, because uncompressed petitboot is quite large ~7 MB

And yes, we could even boot 2 OSs.

Successfully compiled and booted the latest Linux kernel 2.6.37

Improving HDD and FLASH device drivers for Linux So we could get direct access to GameOS regions on Linux

Damn, ps3flash device driver doesn’t support several FLASH devices and regions The driver is so crappy. Have to redesign it completely

Some related previous posts by graf_chokolo from the blog:

Hehe, HV does say to GameOS that Linux region is not accessible I think we can do something about it Damn, i have to be very carefull or i might install Linux on a wrong region

Linux HDD region is accessible on petitboot But the problem is that i have access to all HDD regions and Linux just tries to use the first one, unfortunately owned by GameOS Have to patch petitboot so it selects the right region for Linux

HV hacking is cool

And please guys, i appreciate your support, but keep the conversation technical if possible, it’s hard to follow the blog

Yes baby Now is Linux HDD region accessible from petitboot

ps3disk sb_02: ps3stor_probe_access:130: 4 accessible regions found. Only the third one will be used
ps3disk sb_02: First accessible region has index 3 start 135329976 size 20971512
ps3disk sb_02: ps3da is a Hitachi HTS542580K9SA00 (76319 MiB total, 10239 MiB for OtherOS)
ps3da: unknown partition table
brd: module loaded
loop: module loaded
ps3_system_bus_match:362: dev=7.0(sb_01), drv=7.0(ps3rom): match
irq: irq 18 on host null mapped to virtual irq 29
scsi0 : ps3rom
scsi 0:0:0:0: CD-ROM SONY PS-SYSTEM 302R 4151 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Driver ‘sd’ needs updating – please use bus_type methods
Driver ‘sr’ needs updating – please use bus_type methods
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 0x/0x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0

NEXT STEP – INSTALLING DEBIAN ON HDD

Activated now access to all HDD regions

ps3disk sb_02: ps3stor_probe_access:130: 4 accessible regions found

HV does what i tell him to do Ditifully and beloved HV

Partition table ready

root@ps3-linux:/# ls -l /dev/ps3da*
brw-rw—- 1 root root 254, 0 Feb 5 09:00 /dev/ps3da
brw-rw—- 1 root root 254, 1 Feb 5 09:01 /dev/ps3da1
brw-rw—- 1 root root 254, 2 Feb 5 09:00 /dev/ps3da2
root@ps3-linux:/#

HOLY CRAP !!! Debian Installer launched

And GameOS still boots so i did partition my HDD right Great Today is my best day in the last years So much fun is HV hacking Stay tuned. Too excited now

Damn, i have to patch kernel from Debian installer because Linux has now access to all HDD regions and it tries to use always the first accessible one And that’s the one from GameOS Yeah, right wipe out this cryppy GameOS Seriously, i already patched petitiboot for that Stay tuned.

PS: Debian installer works fine

Yeah, access to all HDD regions might also have some disadvantages

Damn, have to recompile Linux kernel, who writes such drivers, he ? PS� disk driver allows only one region to be accessible. We will se whta can be done about that

Screw Debian How can i recompile debian netinstaller ? Because i have to patch ps3disk driver or else it will install Debian on GameOS region Damn, i think i will stick with my beloved Arch Linux

If someone has tips how to recompile Debian netisnatller please share with me

I will try now to install gentoo over Network on my HDD, don’t know how to recreate Debian Netinstaller

Linux on 3.14 had access to only one HDD region, HV made it sure, but nwo with full GameOS features i have access to all HDD regions and Linux’ ps3 disk driver uses always the first region it find, stupid driver.

Finally installing Debian on HDD Patched HV and disabled access to all HDD regions temporarily except one where Linux is installed I didn’t thought that i will patch HV and actually remove features from there Stay tuned.

But i will enable all HDD regions in HV again as soon as i patched ps3disk on Debian And then we need a new ps3disk driver to access all regions simultaneously The driver is not very good.

Installing Debian packages currently I think i won’t need my payloads anymore, can run now everything through SSH on my Debian PS3 Great HV rules.

I don’t know yellow dog, never used it unfortunately.

I’m installing just an ordinary unmodified Debian distribution, nothing changed by me. Just normal PPC64 distribution. The only thing i changed was my beloved HV But we have to modfy ps3disk device driver to get access to all HDD regions because default Linux driver allows only one.

You could install whatever distribution of Linux you wnat which supports PS3 arch.

Hm, maybe we should contact the maintainer of the driver. The driver is simple, i patched it already for petitboot so it’s uses the right HDD region for booting. But for normal Linux we need a ps3disk driver with multiinstance capability, for several HDD regions.

Installation is done, now configuring my brand new PS3 Debian Linux

Unfortunately i don’t have a camera to take photos but i could make screenshots later when X11 is running