Booting Linux

1. Get a Linux Image

Available distros

Distro	Desktop	Notes
Ubuntu 26.04 (default)	GNOME	Recommended for beginners
Arch	Sway	Low overhead, low RAM usage (~750 MiB idle)
CachyOS	Gamescope + Steam Big Picture, KDE Plasma (no SDDM)	Gaming-focused
Fedora	GNOME (Wayland)
Debian 12	XFCE	Successor to the old Kali-based image
Proxmox VE 8	headless	Runs PS5 as a hypervisor, no desktop
Bazzite	Gamescope + Steam	uBlue gaming Fedora, ostree-flattened
Bazzite Deck	Gamescope + Steam, Deck-like UI	Bazzite's Steam Deck interface variant
Batocera	retro emulation frontend	Pre-built squashfs rootfs

You can also build a multi-distro image with kexec switching between Ubuntu, Arch, and CachyOS on the same USB.

Distro-Specific Notes

CachyOS: sudo pacman -S cachyos-handheld converts a normal CachyOS install into gamescope-first + switch-to-desktop handheld mode automatically, instead of setting it up by hand.

Batocera: if you get network but no display output on v43, it's shipping Mesa 25.3.6 without the PS5 display patches. You either need to wait for a Batocera build with a newer Mesa, or rebuild Mesa yourself with the PS5 patches applied, this isn't a cmdline.txt/EDID issue, it's a missing driver patch at the distro level.

tty1-autologin straight into gamescope (skip SDDM/a display manager entirely): set up a systemd getty drop-in for autologin on tty1 only, then have ~/.bash_profile check it's running on /dev/tty1 before killing leftover Steam helpers and execing gamescope with steam -gamepadui directly. Scoping the check to tty1 only means SSH and other logins aren't affected. This avoids the common SDDM black-screen-on-switch issues some desktop-mode setups hit.

Pre-built

Download from ps5-linux-image releases. Grab the .img.xz for your chosen distro and unpack it.

Build your own

Requires Docker and ~30 GB free disk space.

# Windows: run in WSL first (wsl --install)
sudo apt update && sudo apt install docker.io -y
sudo service docker start
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

git clone https://github.com/ps5-linux/ps5-linux-image
cd ps5-linux-image
chmod +x ./build_image.sh

# Single distro: ubuntu2604, arch, cachyos, fedora, debian, proxmox,
# bazzite, bazzite-deck, batocera
./build_image.sh --distro ubuntu2604
./build_image.sh --distro cachyos

# Multi-distro (Ubuntu + Arch + CachyOS, 32 GB image)
./build_image.sh --distro all

# Build just the kernel packages (.deb / .pkg.tar.zst), no image
./build_image.sh --kernel-only

# Build against a specific ps5-linux-patches branch/tag/commit
./build_image.sh --distro arch --patches-ref main

Output is written to output/ (kernel-only output goes to linux-bin/). Subsequent runs reuse cached kernel and rootfs automatically; use --clean to wipe and start fresh.

WSL running out of memory during build?

Create or edit C:\Users\<you>\.wslconfig and raise the memory limit:

[wsl2]
memory=8GB

Then restart WSL: wsl --shutdown

Editing cmdline.txt from Windows

Without WSL: Use Explorer++ (run as admin) - it can access the FAT32 EFI partition directly where cmdline.txt lives.

With WSL:

To mount the FAT32 partition of the PS5 USB in WSL and edit cmdline.txt:

# Attach the physical drive to WSL (run in PowerShell as admin first)
# Get the drive number with: GET-CimInstance -query "SELECT * from Win32_DiskDrive"
wsl --mount \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 --partition 1 --type vfat

# Then in WSL
ls /mnt/wsl/PHYSICALDRIVE1p1/
nano /mnt/wsl/PHYSICALDRIVE1p1/cmdline.txt

2. Flash to USB

Drive must be 64 GB+. External SSD is strongly reccomended.

Linux/macOS:

# Find your drive with lsblk / diskutil list
sudo dd if=ps5-ubuntu2604.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

Windows: Use Rufus. Balena Etcher has known issues flashing PS5 images - use Rufus instead.

3. Plug USB into PS5

Supported boot ports:

• Front bottom Type-C port
• Rear Type-A ports

The front top Type-A port is USB 2.0 - slower, not recommended.

4. Run the Jailbreak

See Jailbreak.

5. Send the Payload

Download ps5-linux-loader.elf or build it:

# ARM64 hosts need cross-compilation tools first:
sudo apt install gcc-x86-64-linux-gnu binutils-x86-64-linux-gnu

git clone https://github.com/ps5-linux/ps5-linux-loader
cd ps5-linux-loader
make

Send it (replace $PS5IP with your PS5's IP shown on screen):

socat -t 99999999 - TCP:$PS5IP:9021 < ps5-linux-loader.elf

Waking the PS5 remotely (no physical button press)

If you're testing repeatedly and don't want to walk over and press the power button every time, both DualSense wake and HDMI-CEC wake work to bring the PS5 out of orange/rest mode. There's a DualSense BT wake-message spoofer that lets you trigger this from another machine over Bluetooth without needing the actual controller in range.

Reading the LED

LED	Meaning
Orange blinking	Going into rest mode (wait)
Orange static	Ready - press power button now
White	Linux booted
Back to PS5 OS	Power button pressed too early, or USB power in rest mode not set

Troubleshooting Black Screen

• Remove video=DP-1:1920x1080@60 from cmdline.txt on the FAT32 partition
• Add amdgpu.force_1080p=1 to cmdline.txt
• Toggle HDCP on/off in PS5 settings (try both)
• Try a different monitor or capture card
• Report in Discord with your EDID info

First Boot

Ubuntu - black screen before user creation

Ubuntu has no default user. If you get a black screen before completing setup, you cannot SSH in to debug because there is no user to log in as. If this happens, chroot into the install from another Linux environment to create a user first - see Recovering via Chroot.

1. Set up your user account and password. Make sure you remeber it.
2. Disable the screen saver (currently broken).
3. Hold kernel packages to prevent accidental upgrades:

   sudo apt-mark hold linux-generic linux-generic-hwe-24.04 linux-generic-hwe-26.04 \
     linux-image-generic linux-image-generic-hwe-24.04 linux-image-generic-hwe-26.04 \
     linux-headers-generic linux-headers-generic-hwe-24.04 linux-headers-generic-hwe-26.04

4. Install Firefox:

   sudo snap install firefox

5. Update Mesa:

   sudo snap refresh mesa-2404 --channel=latest/edge
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa
   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

6. Install ps5-linux-tools:

   sudo apt install zlib1g-dev
   git clone https://github.com/ps5-linux/ps5-linux-tools
   cd ps5-linux-tools
   make

7. Install the internal WiFi driver:

   git clone https://github.com/ps5-linux/ps5-linux-mwifiex
   cd ps5-linux-mwifiex
   sudo ./install.sh

Recovering via Chroot

If you can't boot but have access to another Linux environment (USB boot, another machine via SSH, etc.), you can chroot into your install to fix things.

Find your partition:

lsblk -f
# Look for the ext4 partition - nvme0n1p3 for M.2, sdXN for USB drive

# M.2 install
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/ps5root
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt/ps5root

sudo mount --bind /dev  /mnt/ps5root/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/ps5root/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys  /mnt/ps5root/sys
sudo mount --bind /run  /mnt/ps5root/run

sudo chroot /mnt/ps5root

# do your fixes here, then:
exit

sudo umount /mnt/ps5root/{run,dev,proc,sys}
sudo umount /mnt/ps5root

Common fixes inside chroot:

• Reinstall kernel: dpkg -i /tmp/linux-ps5_*.deb
• Create user: adduser <username> then usermod -aG sudo <username>
• Fix permissions: chown -R user:user /home/user

Kernel Reinstall (USB drive)

If you broke your external USB drive and can't boot, reinstall the kernel .deb via chroot.

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/usb
sudo mount /dev/sdXN /mnt/usb   # replace sdXN with your rootfs partition

sudo mount --bind /dev      /mnt/usb/dev
sudo mount --bind /dev/pts  /mnt/usb/dev/pts
sudo mount --bind /proc     /mnt/usb/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys      /mnt/usb/sys
sudo mount --bind /run      /mnt/usb/run

sudo cp ./linux-ps5_7.0.10_amd64.deb /mnt/usb/tmp/

sudo chroot /mnt/usb /bin/bash

cd /tmp
dpkg -i linux-ps5_7.0.10_amd64.deb