Iconic PlayStation hacker and homebrew developer Andy ‘TheFlow0’ Nguyen has abandoned the ongoing PS5 Linux project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces.
Nguyen, who famously created the first kernel exploit for the PlayStation Vita, has spent over a decade creating exploits and homebrew for PlayStation systems. As one of the leaders behind the ongoing PS5 Linux project, which brought modern PC gaming to the console, the developer was also bringing the full Linux OS experience to Sony’s PS5 with miraculous results.
In an update on social media, the modder announced that they would be “stepping away from the PS5 scene” as well as ending their work on PS5 Linux. “After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it’s all down the sink,” they said.
Nguyen, like many other homebrew developers recently, explained that they are ending the project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces. Recently, brilliant PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 announced a ban on vibe coding participants due to the fact that vibe-coders in open-source spaces are submitting code that they do not actually understand.
In Nguyen’s words, “the scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don’t even understand”. Additionally, it seems that vibe-coders, or “slop kiddies” as the modder dubbed them, used AI to detect a bug that they were using to crack consoles, and reported it to Sony for a bounty.
“Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony,” the modder said on social media. “I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.”
With this in mind, it seems that the progress on PS5 Linux for consoles on newer OS versions may have been ruined by the reporting of this bug. This means that the last version of PS5 Linux to be helmed by the modder is the currently available Version 2.5 which supports PS5 Phat and Slim console running 3.00-7.61 firmwares.
This still happens to this day especially with startup companies that are like tech adjacent. They get one dude who built something that the company essentially hinges on but it’s not really good. It works for them and when it breaks the dude is the only one that can fix it so he’s treated like a rock star. I’ve done the same thing as what that guy did you several times.
Several years ago I’d see this all the time with companies that were just a website or a social media company. Showing my age here but I remember one place that was like a fashion blog and they had one web dev who was treated like a rock star. he was their dev, their it guy, anything computer related. problem is he built the entire thing in dreamweaver and actually knew very little HTML or CSS or Javascript. so I was brought in on contract to fix their site that was having massive issues. I told them straight up “you need to start over from scratch” and I remember asking the guy what his stack was. that was a foreign concept to him.
Ooof. I can’t imagine being in a job and not gaining at least the awareness of what domain expertise exists.