Enthusiasts have Turned the Nintendo Switch into a Functional Linux Tablet (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A couple of weeks ago, the fail0verflow hacking collective showed a still image on Twitter of a Nintendo Switch booting Linux. They're one of a small handful of hacker teams who are teasing exploits of the Nvidia Tegra hardware inside the Switch. But now fail0verflow has video of a full-on Linux distro running on the hacked Switch, complete with touchscreen support, a fully operational web browser, and even a GPU-powered demo application. On Twitter, fail0verflow claims the bug they're exploiting to sidestep the Switch's security can't be patched on currently released hardware, and doesn't require a modchip. But as for now there aren't any details on how to do this yourself at home.

Comments

Re:Ho-hum.

[mark-t]

Could *YOU* have done it?

The new Wii

[Juju]

This is going to be the new Wii in terms of homebrew and cracked games.
Remember the Homebrew channel? The way you could plug a hard disk and have the graphical interface to play all your "backup" games?

I am sure Nintendo are currently very worried about this and will try to get the hardware patched ASAP.

Re:The new Wii

[Anubis IV]

According to earlier reports, they can’t patch it. The problem is in the SoC itself, meaning they’d need to a new hardware revision in order to issue a “patch”. Any existing Switches are, and will forever be, exploitable by this tactic.

Re:The new Wii

[Scoth]

Laws are pretty picky about destroying property. That would be a bad thing.

The main options would be:
1. Release a "New Switch" that all future games require. This would shut out a huge number of legitimate existing purchasers who have no interest in the hacking though, and Nintendo probably wouldn't want to institute a voluntary recall program. That'd be a mess.
2. Release firmwares and games that don't necessarily prevent this, but detect/undo/refuse to run on modified systems. This would be a cat and mouse game, much as it was on the Wii with various attempts to remove Homebrew channel.
3. Do little to nothing, knowing that the number of people who actually do this are going to be small.

It'll mostly depend on the difficulty and danger of doing it. The 3DS mods are pretty tricky for a lot of the average users, and while it's easier and safer now for most of the system's life it took very specific firmware versions and a lot of tricky steps to do to enable piracy. Wii was fairly easy on the whole bit still took a few steps. On the other hand, Dreamcast piracy just took a cheap burned disc and was a much bigger problem. We'll just have to see how it goes.

true hacking

[ra66itman]

this is what true hacking is, taking something and getting it to do something better or that it was not designed to do,Most likely, they will claim it is exploiting and do a hardware mod to stop this,I remember when someone found a way to put Linux on a Playstation. I know of at least one person/company who bought a dozen Play stations and used them as a array processor.

OH YES

[GameboyRMH]

I might actually buy a Nintendo Switch now. If they get it to run "homebrew" games, that'll just be icing on the cake. I do want to try that new Zelda game.