Booting Linux

Plug the USB drive into the PS5

Use one of the supported boot ports:

• Original PS5: the front USB-C port or the two rear USB-A ports.
• PS5 Slim: the two rear USB-A ports. One of the two front USB-C ports is the slow one, so the rear ports are the safe choice.

Every PS5 has one slow USB 2.0 port (on the original PS5, the front USB-A port). It works, but booting and loading are much slower; use it for a controller or keyboard instead.

Jailbreak the PS5

Jailbreak your PS5 with the exploit for your firmware (see Supported firmware). Jailbreaking itself is not covered by this wiki.

Send the Linux loader as the only payload

Do not run etaHEN, kstuff or any other payload before the Linux loader. If you already have, restart the PS5 and jailbreak again from scratch. Running other payloads first stops Linux from booting.

If you use an autoloader, point autoloader.txt at the Linux loader .elf only. Version 0.4 of the autoloader is more stable than 0.7 on some setups.

There is no permanent jailbreak: you need to jailbreak again every time you want to boot into Linux. Once the exploit has run, the PS5 listens on port 9021 for the Linux loader.

Which loader

The Linux loader is the payload that boots Linux. Use the one that matches your console and firmware:

Loader	For
ps5-linux/ps5-linux-loader	The official loader
rmuxwashere/ps5-linux-loader	Original PS5 and Slim. The loader PS5 Bazzite Deck is tested with, including firmware 13.60 (support by soniciso1).
gzimbric/ps5-linux-loader	PS5 Pro on 11.xx (branch ps5-pro-11xx)
Wigglez-sudo/12.xx-linux-loader	12.xx, including the PS5 Pro

The pinned messages in the #loader channel on Discord point to the current payload.

Send the Linux loader

Download ps5-linux-loader.elf from one of the loaders above, or build the official one yourself:

# ARM64 hosts only: install the 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 to the PS5. Replace $PS5IP with the IP address shown on the PS5's screen:

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

The PS5 then goes into rest mode. Wait for the LED to turn solid orange, then press the power button.

Waking the PS5 without pressing the button

If you are testing repeatedly, you can wake the PS5 from rest mode with a DualSense or over HDMI-CEC instead of walking over to it. The DualSense Bluetooth wake spoofer lets another machine send the wake message over Bluetooth, without the real controller being in range.

Reading the LED

LED	Meaning
Orange, blinking	Going into rest mode, wait
Orange, solid	Ready: press the power button now
White	Linux has booted
Back to the PS5 OS	You pressed the power button too early, or USB power in rest mode is not enabled

The front light bar can also be controlled from Linux, see LED control.

Black screen?

Try these first:

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

See Display output for the full troubleshooting list.

Next: First boot.