Hello. I want to ask a few questions about how switch modding works. I have already searched for these on Google as much as possible but there were no answers for these specific questions, so I made an account here to ask these. I already have some assumptions about certain things, so I did this quiz-style.
1. Atmosphere looks EXACTLY like HOS, same sound effects and all. It even runs games designed for HOS. So what exactly is Atmosphere? Context: sysNAND containing stock HOS + SD card containing Atmosphere and basic homebrew apps like goldleaf (no emuNAND)
Is Atmosphere:
A) a modified copy of HOS (located on the SD card) that uses data (user icons, save files etc) from the internal NAND copy of HOS to give the illusion of a stock HOS that also has homebrew capabilities?
B) a different OS not based on HOS (where said OS is located on SD card) that uses a HOS-style UI and uses data (user icons, save files etc) from the internal NAND copy of HOS to give the illusion of a stock HOS that also has homebrew capabilities?
(If Atmosphere is not based on HOS, how can it run HOS games? API translation layers or something? Is this like booting a Windows PC from a Linux USB and using Wine to run Windows apps?)
C) a piece of software that boots into the stock HOS which is located on internal NAND, but applies small modifications on-the-fly by altering RAM data or otherwise?
D) something else? (Please explain)
2. Why does Atmosphere look exactly like HOS? Is it a deliberate design choice, or is it due to some technical limitations of how Atmosphere works?
3. What is the purpose of a custom bootloader like Hekate?
Is it:
A) because the stock bootloader only boots into stock firmware and not custom firmware
B) because custom bootloaders have more features such as NAND backup and NAND restore
C) Both A and B
D) another reason (please explain)
Please reply if you know the answer to at least one of these.
1. Atmosphere looks EXACTLY like HOS, same sound effects and all. It even runs games designed for HOS. So what exactly is Atmosphere? Context: sysNAND containing stock HOS + SD card containing Atmosphere and basic homebrew apps like goldleaf (no emuNAND)
Is Atmosphere:
A) a modified copy of HOS (located on the SD card) that uses data (user icons, save files etc) from the internal NAND copy of HOS to give the illusion of a stock HOS that also has homebrew capabilities?
B) a different OS not based on HOS (where said OS is located on SD card) that uses a HOS-style UI and uses data (user icons, save files etc) from the internal NAND copy of HOS to give the illusion of a stock HOS that also has homebrew capabilities?
(If Atmosphere is not based on HOS, how can it run HOS games? API translation layers or something? Is this like booting a Windows PC from a Linux USB and using Wine to run Windows apps?)
C) a piece of software that boots into the stock HOS which is located on internal NAND, but applies small modifications on-the-fly by altering RAM data or otherwise?
D) something else? (Please explain)
2. Why does Atmosphere look exactly like HOS? Is it a deliberate design choice, or is it due to some technical limitations of how Atmosphere works?
3. What is the purpose of a custom bootloader like Hekate?
Is it:
A) because the stock bootloader only boots into stock firmware and not custom firmware
B) because custom bootloaders have more features such as NAND backup and NAND restore
C) Both A and B
D) another reason (please explain)
Please reply if you know the answer to at least one of these.
Or others