Turning the Nintendo Switch into Android’s Best Gaming Hardware

arstechnica.com

19 pointsTomte3 comments

I installed Ubuntu on the Switch using some of these methods.

The best part is that one MicroSD card can store Nintendo games and another MicroSD card can store a complete Ubuntu install. Switching between Ubuntu and the native Nintendo OS just requires a card swap and reboot.

Ubuntu even works in docked mode with a monitor and peripherals, so this hack adds the capabilities of an entire GNU/Linux computer to the console.

This only works on units manufactured before Nintendo fixed some of the SoC vulnerabilities. Finding older unpatched units is becoming increasingly difficult.

If one happens to have an ipatched Switch with firmware 4.1.0 or lower, it's exploitable. I haven't looked into it much, but running Android on it then might be possible.

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