There are two major reasons I can think of to hack a game console. The first one is obvious: so you can play cracked copies of games. That’s why modern consoles are so difficult to hack, because millions of dollars are on the line.
But some people just want to run any software they choose on the hardware they own. And for those people, Linux on the Switch is a huge achievement.
I’m surprised it even took this long.
Are there any good use cases for running Linux on it? I figure if you want to run emulators and such, better to wait for an Android port.
The switch is perhaps the best nvidia enabled arm plattform there is at the moment. Running linux on it, and perhaps pairing it with a decent bluetooth keyboard would make for an excellent linux machine, with game emulators lige mame and others perhaps the best and most capable of the handheld size candidates. GPD Win2 is still using intel 615 at best and is about 50% slower than even the ION2 nvidia plattoform commonly seen in netbooks from 2010-2012. (the cpu is a lot faster though, so it weighs up for that shortfall somewhat)
Aside of people who think they’re doing something cool, who would buy a $300usd Switch just to run Linux on it when there are several cheaper alternatives with better performance?
Because they can?
You could go play real-life Frogger on your local freeway too……….
I have a Vita for gaming and various tablets for web browsing, media player and eBook reader. With that I would only need one device.
If they get Bluetooth working and fully-support the Joy-Cons, then this would make an awesome portable RetroArch/Lakka/EmulationStation system. Forget waiting for VirtualConsole to appear, just run all the NES/SNES/N64/GB/GBA games you want on it.
Depending on the performance, you might even be able to get GC/Wii games working. Plus all the non-Nintendo system games.
Sure, there’s lots of other tablets you can do similar setups with using Android and the various emulators in there. But you don’t get the nicely integrated controllers and quick-n-easy docking for on-TV play.
If they get this dualbooting with the normal SwitchOS, it’ll bet pretty much the perfect portable gaming system.
Emulators on Android are terrible, many times they are released with god awful interfaces and hardly work, and then are never updated again.
I would MUCH rather run RetroArch on a Switch, that would be epic. Though to be fair RetroArch is released and kept up to date for Android, I just hate Android so much…
well, they were lucky they could break the crypto that quickly, if firmware had less bugs it could well take years, or forever, …
nintendo is fairly consistent with leaving in rather nasty crypto bugs. it’s really strange.
Yeah, it took much longer with PS4 for example, so I don’t get “I’m surprised it even took this long. from Thom – he even posted quite recently a news item about the PS4 crack.
It runs NetBSD. :-p
Doesn’t NetBSD run on practically everything anyhow?
I think it’s the only OS that doesn’t ever seem to drop support for other architectures!
If “Will it run Doom” is a standard test for gaming machines, “Will it run NetBSD” should be a test for all computing devices