When [Reit Tech] needed something to do with an old Nintendo Wii, he turned to Google. When the AI overview told him it could not be used as a server, he had his mission: prove that clanker wrong. It already runs Doom, so what else is there to do?
Of course should not that hard: Linux has been available on the Wii for years now. In fact there are several; he settles on “Arch, btw”, after trying Debian, Ubuntu, and even NetBSD. “Of course it runs NetBSD”– but NetBSD didn’t work with his USB network adapter, which is sadly as predictable as the hardware running NetBSD.
OK, it’s not vanilla Arch; it’s the Wii-Linux Continuation Project, based on ArchPOWER fork that compiles Arch for PPC. As the young YouTuber was surprised to discover, despite not being a PC or particularly powerful, the Wii has a PowerPC CPU. (He might be younger than the console, so we’ll give him a pass.) Wii-Linux couldn’t run the USB adapter either (appropriate apologies were offered to NetBSD), but it turns out the internal Ethernet adapter was available all along.
As a file server, python-based Copyparty worked flawlessly, but the rust-based Minecraft server he picked was not particularly usable. A little optimization would fix that, since you can serve Minecraft from an ESP32 and the Wii absolutely has more horsepower than that. Doubtless he could have loaded a web-server, and proved Google’s AI summary wrong, but the iPad-induced ADHD we all suffer from these days kicks in, so he settled for posting a screenshot of someone else’s blog, hosted on a Wii from NetBSD. So the LLM was wrong from the get-go, but the tour of “what home-brew loaded OSes still work in 2025” was certainly educational.
We could hunt that Wii-based blog down for you, but we’d be reluctant to link to it anyway: while the AI summary is wrong, and you can use the Wii as a server, that doesn’t mean it makes a good one. We’d don’t feel the need to inadvertently DDOS some poor unsuspecting shmuck’s Nintendo, so we’ll let you try and find it yourself.
Just be warned that all of this Wii hacking may not rest on the best of foundations.
I expect the AI summary was not only wrong, but confidently wrong.
Even better it will now scrape the hard work of the creator and present it as its own without even a freaking link
Answer Gemini gives me now : “Yes, you absolutely can use a Nintendo Wii as a server, but it’s important to understand the context. It’s a fun and interesting technical project, not a solution for high-performance or commercial hosting”
Nailed it bud
“…you can use the Wii as a server, that doesn’t mean it makes a good one.”
Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD. But very often the point of HAD is the FUN in trying. And this is a hoot.
Ask it if a vape pen can be made into a server.
I turned a vape pen into a laser wand, using an old telephone 📞 hand set.
Someone did it month ago
LLM outputs token structures relevant to the tokens activated by the previous responses/prompts. This means it generates the facsimile of what a correct answer LOOKS like complete with statistically averaged correct grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary. What strikes me as odd is that there are cases where a facsimile of a correct response is as good as an actual correct response. Of course this isn’t enough for most uses, say identifying edible mushrooms. The chance of a false positive response could get you poisoned. It’s ontologically confusing to say the least.
I’m very confused by this article… So did he actually run a Minecraft server on it or not? Also kind of got mixed around on the structure and wording of the article. I mean the netbsd bit was made pointless in the paragraph that follows and dare I ask what a “blog Wii-based blog” is? Anyways if nothing else it’s at least good to see that the Wii is still being used for strange and wacky stuff.
Removed the redundant use of the word “blog”. Hopefully that part makes more sense for you at least. ;)
But yes, he did briefly run a Minecraft server, but gave up because it didn’t work very well. Personally I suspect that has more to do with the software he chose for the server than it does with the Wii.
The one shown was posted to HN when it came out and survived without issue with some really heavy traffic. Here it is:
https://blog.infected.systems/posts/2025-04-21-this-blog-is-hosted-on-a-nintendo-wii/
It’s behind a web proxy that handles the cryptography for HTTPS, so all it has to do is serve the static files. It’s really impressive.
I missed it on HN; in that case we’ll give it a shot. It is impressive indeed.
Are people not genuinely embarrassed to say they’re getting “information” from LLMs?
Also, what does this mean?
“but NetBSD didn’t work with his USB network adapter, which is sadly as predictable as the hardware running NetBSD”
NetBSD supports a huge array of USB ethernet adapters, and a decent number of USB wifi adapters.
“Of course should not that hard”
Putting jokes into Google usually elicits confidently wrong AI summaries. “What is the standard reply of a British Rail information officer?” I ask, from the Russ Abbot sketch.
“There is no single “standard reply” for a British Rail information officer, as their responses depend on the query.
, ” it responds, and then goes on about how British Rail doesn’t exist anymore anyway and what information officers are now called instead.
I was looking for a video clip thank you very much Google.
It would be nice if it could give the correct joke response, like Alexa does when asked about opening the pod bay doors.
The AI overview gets things wrong so often I hard skip over it every time, but it’s entertaining to see it give someone enough spite/motivation to do a cool project.
HaD using a slur like that, what a time we live in