It’s a good time to enter the Ps4 Linux scene, because almost every distro is available for the PS4, thanks to all the devs who have worked hard to make it a possibility. Anyways, today, we have the dev, Darkstorm who has released his distro – Debian 11 for the PS4. A feature that sets it apart is the huge list of emulators that come pre-installed.
Features
As reported by PSXHAX, the distro contains a huge list of pre-installed applications for gaming and even for entertainment. Here is the list quoted directly from PSXHAX.
- Wine proton with Vulkan backing
- Genesis Emulator Blastem
- Cen64 emulator of Nintendo 64
- CEMU emulator Wii / WiiU
- Desmume Nintendo DS emulator
- Dolphin-emu GameCube and Wii emulator
- DOSBox emulator for x86 supporting Tandy, Herc, CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA, sound and DOS graphics modes
- All-in-one NES / Famicom emulator
- FS-UAE-Arcade Full-screen game browser for FS-UAE
- GNGB emulator for GameBoy Color
- Hatari emulator for Atari ST, STE, TT and Falcon computers
- Higan multi-system emulator
- MAME: Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator
- Mednaffe front end for Mednafen multisystem emulator
- MGBA-SDL emulator for the Game Boy Advance – SDL front end for mGBA
- mupen64plus-ui-front console in console for mupen64plus
- Nestopia emulator for Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom
- Osmosis-emulator Sega’s Master System and Game Gear console emulator
- PCSXR Sony PlayStation Emulator
- PSPPPS PSP Emulator
- RCPS3 PS3 emulator
- Simple front end Retroarch for Libretro library
- Ryujinx Switch emulator
- Stella Emulator of Atari 2600 for SDL and X Window System
- Virtualjaguar cross-platform emulator of Jaguar from Atari
- VisualboyAdvance advanced and complete Game Boy emulator
- Yabause Saturn emulator
- Yuzu Switch emulator
- Xemu Xbox emulator
- Zsnes emulator for the Super Nintendo / Super NES
- DuckStation
- EmulationStation
- Heroic Launcher (Epic Games) with Proton support
- Steam Linux runtimes
- LUTRIS
- Kodi and VLC for movies
Another feature about this distro is that, it uses a downgraded Mesa version, which makes sure that freezes and crashes are avoided. Please notice that, we do have custom Mesa for that purpose which can be easily switched on Ubuntu or Fedora based distros. You may understand the usage of this custom Mesa by going through the article on Cyberpunk fix.
That is impressive and Darkstorm showcases the distro running a game on CEMU at 60 FPS and a Yuzu game at 30 FPS.
Download
Installation: How to install Debian 11 on PS4?
Requirements
- USB drive – Remember that this distro comes with a lot of distros. So, I recommend atleast 32 GB of storage.
- Files
-
debian11_plus_emus_darkstorm.tar.xz
- bzImage (Download an appropriate kernel according to your PS4 model)
- initramfs.cpio.gz
-
- FAT32 Format
- USB Hub, USB Keyboard and Mouse
- Exploitable PS4 (Find if yours is exploitable)
Installation
The distro can be installed on a PS4 using the rescueshell method. Alternatively, you can try the faster, alternate method if you are on Linux or have a Linux VM, preferably Ubuntu. I also recommend setting up a persistent swap space after you install the distro.
Conclusion
Do try the distro out and let me know how well it works. If you face any problems, leave a comment below. I will try my best to help. But, if you are good with French or good with Google Translate, you can directly leave a comment on the Logic-sunrise thread dedicated to this distro.
I have fat ps4 11xx aeolia and it is not working for me, i thing the problem is downgraded mesa that was not working for me before, if i use it i couldn’t choose any video adapter in the emulators or windows games there were no one to choose. I tried all bzimages known, installed fine from usb but it won’t boot just stays in the rescueshell with a blinking cursor. Maybe because i installed it with psxita initframs but i don’t think so, i will try hippies initframs tommorow
See if any of the steps mentioned here help you.
Does mk11 run on this distro out of the box ?
Anyone else having issues with Install/run
it get to the end of the boot, but does not run the OS?
I used same bz and initramfs.cpio.gz files, as I use for all other builds,
But this build fails to get into The OS.
I use the simple method posted here on ps4linux.com, fat 32 partition and ext4 partition etc.,
never failed before
See if any of the steps mentioned here help you.
Thanks Noob404, however, I do not get a black screen, I see all the usual text, with the last line being ,
run /init etc etc
thats where it stops,
so to confirm I reloaded your Nobara to confirm all the files are correct, it boot up fine, Just not Debian 11.
This is on mt Slim CUH-2215B,
Cheers
for people facing to the installation issue, try to install on the internal drive of the PS4, it will work fine
Hi, but is it possible to install any Linux distro on ps4 slim internal hdd, and if yes – any tutoials?
yes it’s possible :
https://github.com/Hakkuraifu/PS4Linux-Documentation
please follow the tuto at the end
In Tuto is said that – Use a FTP Client and transfer the ..files.. But can i do this just copying files to target directory? or there is some special purpose for ftp?
It should work by directly copying.
And one more question – how does it affect Linux performance if installed on internal HDD? Linux will work faster or gaming will be little bit faster? Thanks.
No idea because I haven’t tried internal HDD install for two reasons. One, it doesn’t work all the time on all the consoles. It’s kinda risky. Two, SSD with a USB 3.0 adaptor does have good performance.
Hi i installed linux onto hdd before and i cant delete the boot and linux folder, i installed fedora 35 on usb and want to acces the hdd but i don’t know how to get the eap key from kernel dump, could you explain what for a program do i need to look into the bin file?
Nazky initframs didn’t work for me, maybe because i used the old way to install to hdd from psxhax, after changing permissions I can’t even acces the folder with ps4 os and file browser, causing instant crash, i messed it up big time 😁. I don’t want to do initialise and deleting all the games…
Haven’t looked into this before. You might have to try Gentoo or something similar which comes with Internal HDD access by default.
To remove Linux from the internal HDD, you can initialize the PS4, but you will lose all data. Or you can install Psxitarch on an external HDD and connect the PS4 drive to delete the Boot and Linux folders without losing data..
Thanks to Mircoho for this method.
there is no need to initialize the ps4 to remove linux from the internal hdd. All you have to do is to remove the file linux.img located in /user/home
Hi, i just was trying t install CuteFish OS in internal HDD and it loaded to rescueshell, but when i type exec install-HDD.sh it says not file found.. What could be wong?
Eveything is fine 🙂 I was so excited of this chance to have Linux on internal HDD that i didn’t read tutorial carefully.. 🙂 So i didnt see that i have to use Nazky Initramfs.. 🙂 Thank you for your great work!
Even using Nazky`s initramfs, for slim insternal, we still get
Device /dev/sd?27 doesnt exist or access denied,
Therefore Install fails.
If anyone has success on Slim internal HDD install, please share your method, and which files/Distro you used.
So is this maybe a typo in the install script??
cryptsetup -d /key/eap_hdd_key.bin –cipher=aes-xts-plain64 -s 256 –offset=0 –skip=111669149696 create ps4hdd /dev/sd?27
should it maybe /dev/sda27, or /dev/sdb27 ??
Cheers
further investigating,
The script is failing to find the internal HDD partitions, so this line is failing
cryptsetup -d /key/eap_hdd_key.bin –cipher=aes-xts-plain64 -s 256 –offset=0 –skip=111669149696 create ps4hdd /dev/sd?27
sda/27
Do we need to dump the hdd key?
(eap_hdd_key.bin )
??
For everyone facing issues with installing on usb, just type resume-boot after install with nazky initframs and payload, tested on my 11xx fat. I am excited it finally works off usb for me 😁. After install with 1gb nazky payload i restarted and loaded psxita 3gb payload, then typed resume-boot
Today it doesn’t work anymore, i got can’t read /etc/fstab error, i think i will give it up for now, it’s too frustrating for me.
Help PS4 pro 6.72 CUH-7016
Please explain the issue and do not post unknown links.
Never Give up,
Never Surrender
: )
hi so you figured it out how to install it on slim’s hdd?
I didn’t give up 😁, now i have new arch distro from darkstorm mentioned on psxhax, cemu is working great with zelda breath of the wild. I just used fps++ for some extra performance and i get 17-30fps witch is acceptable for me, also yabuse is not lagging anymore, ps4 controller is working great also, it makes linux ps4 great emulation machine!
Great.
internal HDD or USB
teArch is for me the best distro for ps4 emulation machine. If you want i have built a tearch v2 with more emulators and english language+us keyboard installed. Maybe my friend noob404 wants to share it with you through this comment and his great site. Here is the setup : https://drive.google.com/file/d/15yM0SXQ-x886WBALWo-T3OdKgVCMKx36/view?usp=sharing
I will add this to the Download section soon. Thank you.
hello my machine is 6.72 ps4 pro CUH-7016 i am transferring files from fat 32 usb correctly Kernel 5.3.7 Gentoo
I’m using exec install-psxıtach.sh installation is coming, but the installation is starting again, the complete installation is not happening
Managed to install on internal 10xx, and external 2215b
If you did the French version, you can chenge the language to ” yours ”
Open a terminal.
Become root — usually by running sudo su there.
Run dpkg-reconfigure locales.
When presented with the list of locales, be sure to locate and check the setting reading “en_US. UTF-8” and/or “en_GB. …
When asked about the default locale for the system, select one of those from the following step.
Hello, I managed to install it on the internal disk of my ps4 slim vaikal.
but when I try to copy files from a usb to the disk, after a few seconds the system freezes and I have to disconnect the ps4
can u please tell us what are the steps you are trying to install linux in baikal?
How we can update the system (whit atp) without breaking it ? 🙂
Hi ! I’m stuck at this moment : Do you have any ideas for solving ?
Tearch Limux 5,3.18-1Tmanla (tty2)
darkstorm-ps4 login: darkstorm
Passhord:
Welcom to TeArch Linux!
¡Last login: Thu Mur 17 20:26:52 on tty2
Welcome to fIsh, the frlendly interactIve shell
“Type help for instructions on how to use fish
darkstorm@darkstorm-ps4 « >
I try >startx but :
X.Org X Server 1.21.1.3
X Protocol version 11, revision 0
Current Operating system. Linux darkstorm-PS4 5.3.18-ITania a5 SMP Sat Apr … MSK 2020 x86_64
Xernel command line panic=0 clocksource=isc radeon.dpm==0 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n0
(…)
xf86I0: failed to enable I/0 ports 0000-03ff (Pperation not permitted
(…)
How do I translate from French to english?
this distro not only starts in french, it breaks and dumps you into the rescue shell if you try to change the language local