ive done it several ways and depends how technical you are , or comfortable you are with doing this sort of stuff. also you will lose PSN we get it back from time to time but cant count on it.
the easiest way is upgrade to ofw (from online source) 3.55 then in recovery mode you will upgrade to cfw kmeaw 3.55. <-- easiest for general use wont miss to much. also be aware with the 3.55 you lose linux. then just throw on a backup manager (i use multiman & rogero) and you are done there are also emulators you can use GB,sega,fba,snes
.
dongles are really no longer required , they used to be if you wanted to keep linux and run on 3.41 but with the cfw that is out there no need anymore. they still serve a purpose as you can use them to go into service mode or re-marry the bd drive. i stopeed using this method just because some games needed mods to work on it. i used psgroove and before that a ti84 to jailbreak them
the best path i think would be the mfw/cfw rebug 3.55 kmeaw based it lets you do a little more with the developer psn. I was on it for a bit but changed back to regular kmeaw
it very simple just need a flash drive.
you can go to psx-scene for some tutorials and most of the software.