Linux

Linux is a UNIX-like kernel that was created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Originally written for the i386 family of computers, it has been ported to many other architectures as well. It is available as free software and forms an essential part of the GNU/Linux operating system, which is often referred to as "Linux" by mistake. Many distributions of GNU/Linux are available which allow users to easily install a GNU/Linux system from pre-built binaries, rather than compile it all themselves.

At the time of writing, there are no known ways to install a GNU/Linux distribution onto the PS4. A fork of the kernel, Linux, was published by fail0verflow on January 3rd 2016, adding support for the PS4. They have also announced working 3D support for the GPU and showed a demonstration through X.org.

There are no known reverse engineering projects ongoing for the CPU/GPU microcode and GPU firmware for the devices to be usable in the free world, unless it is possible that the devices store their code in true ROM.