First PlayStation 3 Custom Firmware Created

Stoobalou writes "Hot on the heels of the discovery of the the PlayStation 3 private root key, and its subsequent leakage by iPhone hacker Geohot, the first custom firmware for the formerly impenetrable console has been released. A code wrangler known only as Kakaroto reckons he has created the world's first custom firmware for the popular console — although if you're expecting it to help you play pirated games, you might be a little disappointed."

Comments

Who cares about pirated games...

[mlts]

I'd love a ROM for these that essentially just makes the PS3 and all its features available to a Linux distribution. Similar to the Other OS functionality, except with full access to the hardware.

There are a lot of cool things a PS3 could do. It is inexpensive, reliable hardware. Of course, XMBC can address the media aspects, but for non-media, I can think of a few things (some can already be done):

1: Hook it up to an external disk array, and use it as a NAS head, with encryption. Perhaps have it rsync to a gmailfs directory for backups to the "cloud" of critical files.
2: Three Ethernet ports, so it can do some complicated firewalling/IDS/IPS/content filtering/NAT.
3: Persistent storage for a squid cache, a caching DNS, DHCP, DDNS.
4: RADIUS server for the wireless router.
5: LDAP
6: Mail gateway.
7: VPN server.
8: SSH gateway.

These are relatively boring things for a PC to do, but a PS3 has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive, reliable, and a non-x86 architecture, which may help things if an attacker manages to get arbitrary code executing.

I almost wish Sony allowed this in the first place -- there is a vast, untapped market for an all in one home server appliance, that doesn't just provide file and print serving, but authentication, caching, and many other features.

Are there video drivers?

[FunkyELF]

I know that there is complete access to the system now (not going through hypervisor), but are there Linux video drivers yet?
I __REALLY__ want to have XBMC on my PS3.

Re:Are there video drivers?

[Khyber]

The RSX is just a modified 7800GS so I would think someone could patch it together sooner or later, given the age of the GPU.

Re:Increased Sales?

[MBCook]

I agree on the PS3 and 360, but surely the margins on the Wii must be pretty good. No Blu-Ray, no hard drive, small processor. Instead of a price drop they just bundled in a game made by Nintendo.

I would expect that Nintendo could drop $50 or more off the price of the Wii and still make money on each unit sold. They haven't dropped the price in years.