Homebrew Linux for 3DS

[BufferOverflow]

Today I saw that on a tweet. It look really interesting and like DSLinux.

Here is the tweet link, he isnt the developer. And I dont know who he is.

TWEET

 

[laharl22]

Yeah oh god!!!! I want linux !!!voted yes

 

[Warft]

Well, maybe Technicmaster0 can tell us who is the developer?

 

[TecXero]

It wouldn't surprise me if someone ported an older Android OS to 3DS.

 

[FAST6191]

Always nice to see Linux on more platforms. I shall await a "this is what differs between the DS and 3ds" (though I suspect I could probably figure it out between the limitations part of http://dslinux.altervista.org/wiki/Faq.htm and http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Hardware / http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Memory_layout ).

 

[SLiV3R]

Cool. Could be interesting and useful!

 

[mid-kid]

Xerpi has been working for a while on getting linux working on the 3DS. Not sure if this is a pic of his stuff.

 

[dicamarques]

Linux everywhere
Let's hope this doesnt end up only as a proof of concept

 

[InfoFront]

Was Linux DS actually useful for anything?

 

[jocopoco]

I beliese it iusnt a good idea there ius already an os on 3ds

 

[pdapanda]

Was Linux DS actually useful for anything?

You can play PlayStation games with linux DS on a dstwo card， I'm not kidding

 

[BufferOverflow]

Well, maybe Technicmaster0 can tell us who is the developer?

Maybe

 

[gudenau]

Darn, I was beat to the punch.

 

[cedeckovec]

Linux for 3DS - YES interesting

Thanks

 

[FAST6191]

Was Linux DS actually useful for anything?

To an extent it was.
For a while the web browser was one of the better options for it on the DS. It had some of the better telnet and ssh options for the DS (and this was before netbooks, before tablets rose up and before the mobile phone OS market got something resembling a dominant platform with workable options for end user code) and there are accounts of people using it for real, it was eventually ported out (though with the help of the work done for the DS linux project) but for a while it was the main method of doing a disk check on your actual DS, some of the server options it had did OK as far as such things went, by virtue of the text readers that Linux tends to come with it had some of the more reliable options for text viewing and writing.
It was never going to be more than a curio, or become anything like the various Linux implementations on something like the raspberry pi are today, but for the time it was usable, useful in many cases and fun if you like tinkering with things like this.

You can play PlayStation games with linux DS on a dstwo card， I'm not kidding

I know there was the PS1 emulator for the dingux port on the ISMM and later DSTwo but it was not DSlinux as most would know it.

 

[Idaho]

If it allows us more control on the device without having to use the 3DS OS at all it'd be interesting.

Does that mean we can cold boot it? Having something similar to Dingux would be wonderful...

 

[Apache Thunder]

If it allows us more control on the device without having to use the 3DS OS at all it'd be interesting.

Does that mean we can cold boot it? Having something similar to Dingux would be wonderful...

It would be extremely difficult to fully boot Linux without the underlying OS that 3DS normally uses still running. Mainly because bootrom expects certain files and code.

Also "cold" booting it is out of the question. For many reasons anyone with common sense on how the 3DS works would already know the answer to. You can not run custom code directly on sysnand during boot. You must either find a bootrom exploit or gain access to the private signing keys that Nintendo only has. So no you can not replace the OS on sysnand on cold boot.

 

[xerpi]

I'm actually the guy who's doing the port. I've had only talked about it on IRC because it's still in a very early development stage, and it doesn't do nearly anything.

Linux source code: https://github.com/xerpi/linux
Linux ARM11 loader source code: https://bitbucket.org/xerpi/3ds-arm11-linux-loader/src

Here's the IRC log:

<xerpi> hi
<xerpi> 3ds linux updated: Simple framebuffer is working :D
<aurelio> bravo! great job :D
<Henke37> does linux work with more than one screen?
<xerpi> http://i.imgur.com/3TusFyI.jpg
<xerpi> http://i.imgur.com/AUR0g6n.jpg
<xerpi> and the kernel panic: http://i.imgur.com/m5u78Wn.jpg?1
<fincs> ^ O_o that's seriously cook
<fincs> *cool
<xerpi> I'll change the font to 8x8, it's huge
<xerpi> also,I'm writing an I2C driver right now
<Henke37> Id focus on the ir port first
<Henke37> might as well get a serial port for debugging
<xerpi> yep
<Henke37> was that on the i2c bus or not? I can't recall
<xerpi> yes it is, so I have to write the i2c bus driver first
<Henke37> I suspected as much
<xerpi> it looks a bit better now: http://i.imgur.com/vlFkuoy.jpg?1
<derrek> looks cool xerpi
<derrek> how did you fix the issue that the kernel was ignoring VRAM btw?
<xerpi> I was doing it wrong, the kernel only has to map the memory when it's needed
<xerpi> the framebuffer driver does the map
<xerpi> you tell the physical address to the driver and it does the ioremap to map the physical address into the kernel virtual address space
<|OMEGA|> what will you do with Linux on 3Ds? :}
<xerpi> nothing, just for fun xD
<|OMEGA|> ok hehe
<tcm0> can't wait to use apache with the 3DS :D
<profi200> xD
<profi200> Better get a RPi 2 for that purpose.
<tcm0> Well my RPi B serves well enough :P
<profi200> xerpi: It looks like there is text missing at the right side.
<Henke37> xerpi, are you usng the bottom screen for anything?
<xerpi> profi200, on some messages the text is cut, on others it scrolls, weird
<xerpi> Henke37, not by now, I need to get the timer stuff working first
<profi200> I wonder if you can get both the ARM9 and the other ARM11 core into the boat.
<tcm0> and ARM7 :D
<profi200> For the ARM9 you need some sort of command handler and a PXI driver for Linux.
<xerpi> profi200, yeah, and I'll need that specially if I want to write to the SD

Bonus videos:

 

[Idaho]

Seems interesting, if we could boot Linux with total access over the console then I guess it could provide a saner environment to launch homebrews than what we actually have.

If we really want this to be interesting, we'll have to get people to code effective drivers...

 

[Technicmaster0]

Well there he is. It's just a picture that I took from xerpi. But I really didn't expect the tweet to go that viral.