Andy Nguyen, known in the community as TheFloW, has decided to leave the PlayStation 5 hacking scene and will no longer work on PS5 Linux. The developer had been working on the project for several months and even planned to add PS5 Pro support in 2027. Now, these plans have been abandoned.
PS5 Linux became one of Nguyen's most notable projects in recent years. In March 2026, he first demonstrated running Linux on a regular PS5, even managing to run Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced with ray tracing. Over time, this ceased to be just a technical demonstration: the project gained tools to run Linux on specific firmware versions, and the console's graphics were utilized through Mesa.
The foundation for all this work was vulnerabilities in the PS5 hypervisor — a protected layer of the system that controls access to the console's hardware resources. Gaining access to it allowed bypassing a number of PlayStation 5 restrictions and loading a custom Linux kernel. Nguyen continued to develop the project and expected to eventually move to newer firmware versions and the PS5 Pro.
But now this work has stopped. As TheFloW explained, he himself found another serious hypervisor vulnerability and deliberately did not report it to Sony. The researcher wanted to save it until the release of Grand Theft Auto VI. In that case, owners of the corresponding firmware version could retain the ability to run Linux and still wait for the game's release.
The plan unexpectedly fell apart after another researcher, known as Jordy, independently found the same vulnerability and sent the information to Sony via HackerOne. According to Jordy, he used AI-based tools when searching for the bug.
It used to be a group of high-class researchers, and now it's a bunch of noobs who use large language models and write hacks without even understanding how they work. These young vibe coders found the only remaining hypervisor vulnerability — which I discovered even earlier — and decided to report it to Sony.
This particular moment especially upset Nguyen. He claims that he asked other members of the scene not to disclose such vulnerabilities at least until the release of GTA VI, but, according to him, this agreement lasted less than a day. After the information was passed to Sony, they can now close the vulnerability with a future firmware update.
This is a serious blow for PS5 Linux. Without a working exploit, the project's development on new firmware versions may become much more difficult, and plans for the PS5 Pro have already been canceled. At the same time, Nguyen speaks not only about the technical reasons for his departure. He is also greatly annoyed by what he believes is how the scene has changed: the developer criticized people who use LLMs to create code and exploits without understanding what artificial intelligence is generating.