Installing and booting PlayStation 2 Linux - frno7/linux GitHub Wiki

Make sure that you have

• installed wLaunchELF, to be used as the bootloader for PlayStation 2 Linux.

Proceed by either

• downloading a precompiled vmlinuz archive from the actions menu, for either PAL or NTSC systems, or
• building a PlayStation 2 Linux kernel to obtain a vmlinuz Linux kernel file.

The vmlinuz file should be about 4 MB, or less, depending on its configuration, and the size of the initramfs linked within the file. Now,

• copy the vmlinuz file to a USB drive, and rename it to have an .elf file extension, which is required for wLaunchELF to recognise the ELF file format. Valid examples of names include vmlinuz.elf, vmlinuz-5.4.123.elf, linux-5.4.123.elf, linux-ps2.elf, and so on.

Finally, power on the PlayStation 2, with the USB drive inserted, and launch the kernel file using wLaunchELF to boot Linux.

[!NOTE] Be aware that it can take 10 to 20 seconds, or so, before anything is displayed on the screen. Booting faster is a future improvement.