Team-Xecuter has been quiet since v6.0.0 officially rolled out for the Nintendo Switch last week, but they are back with this time an amazing revolutionary update to their SX OS

And you may ask why is it 'revolutionary', well because for first time a CFW for the Switch contains 'EmuNAND', just like back in the days of the 3DS scene, so check out their official PR announcement below:

Hello friends! Team Xecuter is happy to bring you the official 2.0 release of your beloved SX OS.

A lot has happened since the initial release of SX OS a few months ago. This is far from a simple proof of concept custom firmware anymore. With this major update we bring some exciting new functionality to the table. We suggest you grab a beverage of your choice and read on to learn more!

• EmuNAND

Lets start with the major new feature in 2.0: EmuNAND.

Those who have a background in the Nintendo 3DS hacking scene know what this is, but let's quickly elaborate for those of you who are new to the game:

The Switch uses a NAND Flash storage chip to store all of the system software, as well as your save games and other assets. With EmuNAND we create a shadow copy of this storage from which you can run SX OS. The benefits from doing this are that you keep your SX OS "world" separated from your original firmware. This also means you can keep your switch on an older firmware, while running the latest and greatest firmware inside of your EmuNAND. As we all know, older is better.. when it comes to defeating system security at least. And newer is better when it comes to enjoying the latest content!

Another upside of consolidating your SX OS usage from your original firmware usage is vastly reducing the risk of a network ban. You can run SX OS in EmuNAND, of course with our Stealth Mode enabled, and anything that is littered on the EmuNAND's filesystem is not visible to the switch in Original Firmware mode.

One thing to note is that SX OS EmuNAND works a bit differently compared to what some of you might think of as "traditional" EmuNAND where the entire NAND is copied to a separate partition on the MicroSD card. With SX OS EmuNAND your EmuNAND partition lives inside of your regular NAND. The primary reason for this is that occupying 32GB of a MicroSD card is a bit wasteful. The secondary reason is by utilizing the existing flash storage we can guarantee performance and reliability.

You can set up EmuNAND by booting into the SX OS boot menu (hold Volume + during boot) and going into the revamped "Options" menu. There you will find a section called EmuNAND which will guide you through the setup. By default SX OS will allocate 15GB for your EmuNAND partition. If you want to use a different size hit the "advanced" button before creating your EmuNAND.

SX OS will boot into EmuNAND by default if it finds a valid EmuNAND partition. If you don't want to boot into EmuNAND, there's a button in the SX OS Boot menu which will allow you to continue booting with EmuNAND disabled.

• NAND Dumping, Restoring, GPT Repair

As mentioned in the previous section we have revamped our SX OS boot menu's option screen quite a bit. For the tinkerers and advanced users we introduced an easy method of dumping/restoring your NAND flash storage. Another neat addition for people who had an unhappy accident while playing with their NAND is the "GPT Repair" option. This will repair your NAND's partition table if you ever need to. Again, this functionality is for advanced users who know what they're doing only. Please be cautious when using this functionality.

• LayeredFS working on 6.0

With our (early) support for 6.0 we introduced a regression where "LayeredFS" would no longer work. This has been corrected and you can now enjoy your game modifications/hacks again on the latest official firmware.

• Homebrew NSP Compatibility

We got word that the community has started distributing homebrew titles as NSP files recently. These NSP files cut some corners in the way they are crafted, but we decided to introduce support to make them usable with SX OS anyway. So you can now enjoy your favorite homebrew titles that comes as installable NSP files and launch them directly from the home screen!

• Closing Words

Whew, we're sorry for the wall of text. We tried to keep things as concise and easy to understand as possible. SX OS 2.0 is a big and important update, but certainly won't be the last. We know you're all waiting for even more functionality that is in high demand. Rest assured, we work as fast as we can to scrap these items off of the bucket list and bring them to you, the loyal end user, as fast as we can!

Enough chit-chat, you can update to SX OS 2.0 right *now* by using the built-in updater if you are running SX OS 1.9 or higher. Otherwise head to our website and grab a copy! Enjoy!

--< Team-Xecuter - Rocking the Switch in 2018 and beyond! >--​

Source: MaxConsole

 

[XXLANCEXX]

yeah with this update i keep getting this error code
2168-0002

 

[Albytrozz]

The best part of 2.0 is layerfs supported, I could careless about emuNAND because I don't afraid to be banned

Yeah except now it's breaking a lot of games... try to get past the intro to Doom with 2.0, layerfs support has supposedly broken it and a few other games.

 

[guitarheroknight]

To further elaborate.
What would look right. (ignoring safe partition, including it with system partition. And simplified since also ingoring boot partitions.)
System partition(4gb)+ User partion=32
system partition-system partitions files+ Usernand - usernand files=available space. So let me do some math here and pretend somethings. Let's say I have used 10gb of my switches user partition. And the system partition takes let's say 4gb and I'm using 2gb of it.
28-10=18gb Usernand availability. 4-1=3gb system availability.
Total nand size
18+10+3+1=32
So now let's have a situation where let's say it is duped (sx os emuannd). And that space is taken off system nand partition. Meaning we have 2gb instead of 4gb.
28-10=18 total User nand available. 2-1= system nand available
available user space+ User taken space + system space + system space taken=total nand
28+2=30 which would not equal 32. Why? because another partition that space neither has access to.

Since everbody seems to have an idea how Emunand works by just looking at the release notes, I thought I'd try and find out myself how exactly Emunand in SX OS actually works. No bullshit claims, real facts.

So what I did was create a NAND backup without emunand, and then make another NAND backup after emunand was created.

Here's what I found out so far:

- boot0 is unmodified
- boot1 is modified with EMUNAND0 tacked at the end (some unused area)

- GPT is UNMODIFIED
- All partition locations / sizes are UNMODIFIED
- Everything is unmodified except for the USER partition, in which a few new files have been created (called NAND01.bin, NAND02.bin and so on)

That means NO resizing has taken place. Only new files have been created, like regular Nintendo OS would do.

So from what we can conclude so far: OFW mode is actually perfectly safe. Nintendo would need to actively start detecting the EMUNAND0 magic in boot1 or start to detect the new files, which would be hilarious if they would start to do so. This detectable point is actually moot, because with EmuNAND stored on the microSD, Nintendo would be able to detect it too if they actively start to do so.

The resized partition claims that everyone has been spouting are bullshit.


Ok so now lets take a look from what exactly is in these NAND bin files?

As it turns out, it mimics the layout of the Switch eMMC but inside the NAND files! It's layout it split into multiple NAND bin file parts.

Here's what I found out :
- boot0 in emunand is 100% exactly the same as the real one
- boot1 in emunand is 100% the same as the real one (without the EMUNAND0 magic)
- GPT in emunand is SAME as real one
- All partitions are the SAME except the USER partition.

So far everything is the same, and now here comes the difference: The emunand USER partition volume size is 15GB. SMALLER than the real one.
That's it. That's the only difference.

I think it is possible to have the USER partition claim it is the same size as the real USER partition, but fill up the FAT table with clusters marked as USED.
HEY TX ARE YOU LISTENING? This would make it EXACTLY the same as real USER partition from the Switch's standpoint!

But with that said, I don't see any telemetry sending the USER partition size so it does not really matter for now.
If I am mistaken on this, let me know what telemetry it is sending and I will amend it here.

The "NANDTotalSize" telemetry seems something people claim is changed but I have not checked it yet. I will do so later.

That's it for now what I managed to discover, but I think it is safe to say people are spouting bullshit so far without actual FACTS.



One more note: Since the NAND bin files are located inside the USER partition, this cannot be supported with trivial changes to the FS sysmodule.

For this to work you need to actually .. say.. EMULATE the eMMC read/write commands with patches in the FS sysmodule.

 

[leonmagnus99]

oh finally not seeing any posts state they - They stole this from ...From !!...
c'mon guys check this out emuNAND woo!

 

[chunleee]

Hello guys, sorry im lost.. so which state can i update to 6.0? Emunand without stealth mode? Original? (with nand backup) Sxos without emunand/stealth? None? Thanks

 

[Ryu Kenshin]

Hello guys, sorry im lost.. so which state can i update to 6.0? Emunand without stealth mode? Original? (with nand backup) Sxos without emunand/stealth? None? Thanks

Well, the best ban avoid tactics now is have clean OFW plays with real gamecard and NSP on emuNAND, and it is best to have 2 SD card: 1 for OFW and 1 for emuNAND

 

[linuxares]

Well, the best ban avoid tactics now is have clean OFW plays with real gamecard and NSP on emuNAND, and it is best to have 2 SD card: 1 for OFW and 1 for emuNAND

This Emunand doesn't support SD Card so no, it won't run from the SD at the moment. Avoid 2.0 until it supports it.

 

[wurstpistole]

This Emunand doesn't support SD Card so no, it won't run from the SD at the moment. Avoid 2.0 until it supports it.

I mean, one could also use 2.0 even if not interested in emunand at all. No need to avoid it.

 

[Lpckid]

That's why you stay on 5.1 switch and use emunand so lower games work great go duck hunt sick.

 

[linuxares]

I mean, one could also use 2.0 even if not interested in emunand at all. No need to avoid it.

I've just seen reports everywhere that 2.0 seem to break homebrew etc. That's why I recommend avoiding it, but it's my personal belief.

 

[Ryu Kenshin]

I've just seen reports everywhere that 2.0 seem to break homebrew etc. That's why I recommend avoiding it, but it's my personal belief.

I've updated 2.0 since yesterday, no trouble with homebrew yet, and I played Doom on PS4 so no trouble with games, too

 

[linuxares]

I've updated 2.0 since yesterday, no trouble with homebrew yet, and I played Doom on PS4 so no trouble with games, too

Yeah I've seen it as well. Some for it works fine, some not. It's a very strange combo.

 

[stewacide]

Curious what would happen if you installed emunand on 5.1 (thus resulting in a 5.1 emunand image), and then updated ofw to 6.0. Would it break/erase the emunand image?

 

[shanefromoz]

Curious what would happen if you installed emunand on 5.1 (thus resulting in a 5.1 emunand image), and then updated ofw to 6.0. Would it break/erase the emunand image?

I think its meant to be so you can keep your switch on ofw 5.1 and have emunand on 6.0

 

[stewacide]

I think its meant to be so you can keep your switch on ofw 5.1 and have emunand on 6.0

What's the point of this? You'd end up with the worst of both: can't go online in sysnand, and have to deal with 6.0 incompatibility in emunand.

 

[shanefromoz]

That's why you stay on 5.1 switch and use emunand so lower games work great go duck hunt sick.

Are you saying keep the ofw on 5.1.
Then install emunand and update it to 6.0?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

What's the point of this? You'd end up with the worst of both: can't go online in sysnand, and have to deal with 6.0 incompatibility in emunand.

What is the point of emunand then?

 

[titan_tim]

Does this automatically boot into emunand? Or do you still need the dongle to boot?

 

[stewacide]

What is the point of emunand then?

I would think to be able to go online in sysnand, while being able to install NSPs and homebrew in emunand. Previously it was one or the other, now seemingly you can do both. It really doesn't matter what FW your emunand is (5.1 or 6.0 would be best as devmenu and tinfoil work), but sysnand would need to be 6.0.

 

[shanefromoz]

I would think to be able to go online in sysnand, while being able to install NSPs and homebrew in emunand. Previously it was one or the other, now seemingly you can do both. It really doesn't matter what FW your emunand is (5.1 or 6.0 would be best as devmenu and tinfoil work), but sysnand would need to be 6.0.

Oh so Dev menu now works on 6.0?
Is there anything else that does not work on 6.0?
Should i keep emunand on 5.1 or update it to 6.0?

 

[realjumy]

Check out @Reisyukaku’s Tweet:

>when you push broken patches so TX can steal them and then amend commit with working patches.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

— Rei (@Reisyukaku) September 23, 2018