Hacking Question How can I have a working dual boot setup SX OS / Atmosphere with the SX Dongle?

[wurstpistole]

Boot SX OS, tell it to load hekate.

Well, yeah, we figured that out on page 1

Just get an regular RCM dongle then, SX OS Dongle is overprice anyway when you can get the payload online.

Yes, of course that'll work. I wanted to find a solution for this issue specifically for people who might want to switch from SX to Atmosphere, and thus may have the sx dongle already and want to still use it instead of buying another one

@wurstpistole it's a long way around it.. but try this app – it allows the 'reboot to payload' to select between different payloads - https://github.com/suchmememanyskill/Payload_Launcher

So the long way would be, use SX dongle and boot to SX OS, run the app and select the reboot payload as atmos.. then it should reboot into atmos and you can have both OS on the same SD card.

Faster solution is Hekate, and use Hekate as reboot payload as well so you reboot into a cfw selector when you want to

I guess you are right, I didn't consider that. You can load other payloads through SX OS/SX Gear, and you can load SX OS from other payloads, but as both methods rely on swapping out the boot.dat and/or payload.bin, you cannot do both easily. Maybe hex editing the SX payload so that it will load another file like for example boot.da2 would work, so you could have two SX payloads, with SX Gear payload as boot.dat loading into a chainloader like Hekate, and the other payload (which you load from the chainloader) loading into boot.da2 containing SX OS. I don't think the main RCM payload is encrypted so it should be hex editable.

But it would be easier to have SX OS as the main payload, and use the payload loader feature to load into Hekate or another chainloader when you want to use other payloads like Atmosphere (even if Atmosphere doesn't work directly from SX' chainloader it should work from Hekate)

Alternatively you could pick up another dongle. I ordered an RCMloader One on AliExpress the other day and it was only $10.69.

Right, you got the issue now - the cfw is in the boot.dat hence you can't replace it with the SX Gear chainloader boot.dat or a custom boot.dat. I looked into the SX payload with a hex editor, it's all mumbo jumbo. That would have been a more elegant solution, via the SX Gear boot.dat allowing the dongle to boot either Hekate or a payload selector like argon directly, and go from there.

 

[Hayato213]

Well, yeah, we figured that out on page 1

Yes, of course that'll work. I wanted to find a solution for this issue specifically for people who might want to switch from SX to Atmosphere, and thus may have the sx dongle already and want to still use it instead of buying another one

Well, regardless you would still want a dongle that you can write payload to , like the NS Atmosphere, RCM Loader ONE. There isn't really any solution of loading from a dongle if you aren't willing to buy another dongle.

 

[wurstpistole]

Direct solution no. Only workaround with Hekate. It's an extra step, but it works

 

[matias3ds]

Maybe Tx will add it as an update feature , to avoid buying other dongles .

 

[Hayato213]

Maybe Tx will add it as an update feature , to avoid buying other dongles .

I highly doubt it, knowing TX they will probably never allow it on their own dongle.

 

[wurstpistole]

Yeah, doubt it as well. Would have to be able to swap out the payload that's on the dongle. Don't see that happening, when in theory, with the microusb connector, it should be possible after all

 

[matias3ds]

Yeah, doubt it as well. Would have to be able to swap out the payload that's on the dongle. Don't see that happening, when in theory, with the microusb connector, it should be possible after all

Maybe they will be fix something diffrent for the lunch of the mariko console , after all they keep saying that they are still working on that .
Here they are selling switch before the mariko realease to US $420 , does it look expensive this price ?

 

[DocKlokMan]

@wurstpistole it's a long way around it.. but try this app – it allows the 'reboot to payload' to select between different payloads - https://github.com/suchmememanyskill/Payload_Launcher

So the long way would be, use SX dongle and boot to SX OS, run the app and select the reboot payload as atmos.. then it should reboot into atmos and you can have both OS on the same SD card.

This is the method I have to use. I boot SX OS and then if I want Atmosphere I use the Payload Launcher to reboot to Atmosphere.

 

[gizmomelb]

This is the method I have to use. I boot SX OS and then if I want Atmosphere I use the Payload Launcher to reboot to Atmosphere.

it seems to be the optimal solution instead of booting to hekate.

 

[wurstpistole]

it seems to be the optimal solution instead of booting to hekate.

*shrugs* if you want to boot to SX first, maybe.

 

[mrdude]

What type of microprocessor does sx dongle have?

I use a modchip based on atsamd21, attached is the uf2 file I flashed for using with Argon:

Here's the sd card files:
https://github.com/Guillem96/argon-nx/releases/download/0.3/sd-files.zip

When the chip boots, it goes to the argon menu and you can select what to boot, it's easy to add/remove payloads and no more chip flashing for different CFW.

Screenshot:

The attached uf2 should work on any samd21 based chip.

 

[wurstpistole]

What type of microprocessor does sx dongle have?

I use a modchip based on atsamd21, attached is the uf2 file I flashed for using with Argon:

Here's the sd card files:
https://github.com/Guillem96/argon-nx/releases/download/0.3/sd-files.zip

When the chip boots, it goes to the argon menu and you can select what to boot, it's easy to add/remove payloads and no more chip flashing for different CFW.

Screenshot:

The attached uf2 should work on any samd21 based chip.

While I appreciate your effort, I highly doubt that the SX dongle uses anything compatible, since someone would have figured that out a long time ago already, probably immediately

 

[smf]

Maybe they will be fix something diffrent for the lunch of the mariko console , after all they keep saying that they are still working on that .
Here they are selling switch before the mariko realease to US $420 , does it look expensive this price ?

mariko has not been released yet, the patched switches are different.

We have no idea if mariko will actually be released, nintendo may have ordered a complete redesign when fusee gelee was released.

That disclosure may have cost us the ability to hack mariko.

 

[stick267]

I'm not sure if this will work, but you can try it out.

CTCaer made a Python script awhile ago that merges Hekate into the SX OS boot.dat to create a custom boot.dat that will launch Hekate instead of the SX OS bootloader.

https://gist.github.com/CTCaer/13c02c05daec9e674ba00ce5ac35f5be

How to use:
1. Place the script, the latest Hekate bin, and the latest SX OS boot.dat in the same folder.
2. Either edit the script to change the name of the Hekate bin to "hekate_ctcaer_4.9.1.bin", or just rename the Hekate bin to "hekate_ctcaer_3.2.bin".
3. Run the script. There should be no output and the old boot.dat will be overwritten with the custom one.
4. Replace the boot.dat on your SD card with the new one you just generated.
5. Boot Switch into RCM with the SX dongle inserted, and it should boot directly into Hekate. If you have your SD/configs configured correctly then you should be able to choose between booting SX OS or Atmosphere.

In theory it should work, but this script is 8 months old so the new Hekate and/or SX boot.dat may not be compatible with it anymore. I would test it out myself but I'm at work and my Switch is at home.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, this wouldn't work for what you're trying to achieve. I don't think the resulting boot.dat has any ability to launch SX OS through Hekate.

 

[wurstpistole]

The way I see it, this doesn't merge Hekate into an existing boot.dat, but creates a boot.dat out of any payload you want... without SX OS in it. That's what the problem is altogether - that the SX Dongle is tied to the boot.dat, which itself wouldn't be a problem since we can just convert any payload into a compatible boot.dat... but then you can't use SX OS anymore.

 

[stick267]

The way I see it, this doesn't merge Hekate into an existing boot.dat, but creates a boot.dat out of any payload you want... without SX OS in it. That's what the problem is altogether - that the SX Dongle is tied to the boot.dat, which itself wouldn't be a problem since we can just convert any payload into a compatible boot.dat... but then you can't use SX OS anymore.

Yeah I realized that after I made the post. Imo your best option is just using the reboot to payload homebrew. That way when you're in SX OS you can choose to reboot to Hekate or fusee, and while in Atmosphere you can choose to reboot to the SX Gear payload.

 

[Celetic]

If you hold Vol+ when inserting the SX dongle it will load the SX launcher and from there you can launch the Atmosphere payload.

 

[wurstpistole]

If you hold Vol+ when inserting the SX dongle it will load the SX launcher and from there you can launch the Atmosphere payload.

If you had read the first post and/or actually tried it, you would know that since SX OS 2.6 you cannot launch Atmosphere from SX launcher anymore.

 

[colking]

After installing Kosmos and updating my emuFirmware to 7.0, I can no longer use SX OX dongle to boor CFW. I can get into SX OX menu but when I click boot CFW, the screen goes black. Do I have to update SX OS? I'm on 2.5.3 now.
thnx

UPDATE:
I downgraded down to 6.2 and old xci files are working now. Why odes going up to 7.0 mess those up?
Thnx

 

[colking]

Noob here...
I was using SX OX pro dongle and had most games working. I updated to emuNand from 6.0.1 to 7.0 using Choudejour and I also installed Kosmos. I did the update to play new games. Now I can no longer play a bunch of XCi files and also can't boot in to CFW from SX OX menu. The Wonder boy nsp works but nothing else. I'd like to be able to use all the xci games with SX OX. It's a mess now... What should I do to fix this?
thnx