ReyOS
A calm, dependable KDE desktop built to give older computers a second life.
Install it, use it, update it, and recover it — without fear.
A calm, dependable KDE desktop built to give older computers a second life.
Install it, use it, update it, and recover it — without fear.
Features
These ship with ReyOS by default — no extra installs, no separate accounts.
One settings app instead of a dozen. Updates (a read-only check first, then the whole system updated together so it never ends up half-updated, with a Timeshift snapshot before each update once Backup is set up), a Backup Center, a unified Security page (firewall, bring-your-own WireGuard VPN, Shields, permissions, opt-in USB device protection), CVE-tracked security updates, one-click NVIDIA driver install, network/Wi-Fi/sound/users, guarded permission repair, and live power & performance tuning — including zram, systemd-oomd protection, and adaptive preload for faster everyday responsiveness and boot-time follow-through — organized as Home, Essentials, and Advanced. Updates come from a tested snapshot of Arch (the stable channel), so a half-finished Arch update can't break your apps; a Looks page restyles the whole desktop in one click; and anything that changes the system asks for your password. Every install also keeps a backup kernel in the boot menu, so a bad kernel update still leaves you a way back in. When updates are ready, Control Center offers to install ReyOS's own apps and Flatpak apps such as Reyva together, in one click.
A Midnight Copper terminal menu (reyos-tools) for the stuff you'd otherwise have to Google: safe package updates, firewall rules, CPU/swap tuning, zram and swappiness controls, home-only permission fixes, and network & disk info.
Reyva is private by default — session-only, no history, no accounts — with ad/tracker Shields on out of the box, a maintained filter list you can refresh anytime, and a reader mode for cleaner articles. More on the browser ↓
ReyOS Reader is a native EPUB, PDF, and comic-book (CBZ/CBR) reader with a Kindle-style layout — for your books and manga without needing a browser tab or a third-party app.
ReyOS Connect puts your phone and your other computers in one place. Pair a phone with KDE Connect (iPhone or Android), then send files, links and your clipboard, ring a lost phone, or use the phone as a remote. Open another computer's desktop (Windows, KDE or GNOME over RDP, or VNC), share this one with your phone (Wayland session), and reach everything away from home with Tailscale (set up and sign in right from ReyOS Connect) or WireGuard.
Steam, GameMode and the MangoHud performance overlay in one click. Classic consoles from the NES to the PlayStation 2 and 3DS: pick the systems you want and ReyOS installs only those emulators, with a game library, controller setup, and a BIOS checker that puts your own dumped BIOS files where each emulator looks. Every game started from ReyOS runs with GameMode and an optional FPS overlay, and one button adds the same to your Steam games. ReyOS doesn't include any games or BIOS files. More on gaming ↓
Screenshots
Real captures from a fresh ReyOS-Test install — no mockups, no staged renders.
The desktop — KDE Plasma, Midnight Copper theme.
Reyva — private by default, captured as a live app window.
ReyOS Toolbox — the Midnight Copper terminal menu for system maintenance.
Status
ReyOS is being built and validated in the open, one fresh install at a time. Here's the honest state of things right now — nothing here is marketing gloss.
kdewallet). A proper fix is being worked on.Download
Published as a GitHub Release with SHA-256 checksums. The ISO (3.0GB) is split into two parts to fit GitHub's per-file size limit — download both and join them before use (steps below). Source is already public if you want to follow along.
x86_64, KDE Plasma, Calamares installer, Midnight Copper theme. Try it from the live desktop, or install it next to another system.
Download Part 1 (2.0GB) Download Part 2 (1.2GB)Release notes on GitHub · See how installing works ↓
After downloading both parts, join them into one file:
Linux / macOS:
cat reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part1 reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part2 > reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.isoWindows (Command Prompt):
copy /b reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part1+reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part2 reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.isoPackage sources, ISO build profile, and Calamares config — all public on GitHub.
View on GitHubInstall Guide
Same steps as installing any Linux distro from a USB drive — the one extra step here is joining the two downloaded parts back into a single ISO first.
Download reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part1 and .part2 from the GitHub Release, then join them (Linux/macOS):
cat reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part1 reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part2 > reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.isoOn Windows (Command Prompt):
copy /b reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part1+reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso.part2 reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.isoThen confirm the joined file wasn't corrupted:
sha256sum reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.isoCompare the result against afb765f64b7b1bfdefc4cc1e42a78cd7731600a35b6bc04f0bee42b48ea54f58 (also published with the release).
On Linux, find your USB device first with lsblk — getting the device wrong will erase the wrong disk — then write the ISO directly to it:
sudo dd if=reyos-2026.10.18-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=syncReplace /dev/sdX with your actual USB device, not a partition like /dev/sdX1. Prefer a GUI? balenaEtcher or Ventoy work the same way on Linux, Windows, or macOS.
Restart the target machine and open its boot menu — commonly F12, F10, Esc, or Del depending on the motherboard — and select the USB drive. ReyOS boots straight to a live desktop; nothing on the machine's disk is touched yet, so it's safe to just look around first. Plug the USB drive directly into the computer, not into a USB hub: a slow hub can leave the screen black for minutes while the boot files load.
The Calamares installer opens automatically on the live desktop. Pick your language and keyboard layout, choose a disk (Erase Disk is the simplest option for a clean install), and create your user account.
Once the installer shows "All done.", remove the USB drive and reboot. First login lands on ReyOS Welcome to finish setup — pick software, and you're in.
A complete install of this exact ISO was run in a virtual machine: Calamares finished, ReyOS booted from the new boot menu by itself and from the backup kernel, Welcome installed two apps and set up the desktop, and the wallpaper slideshow survived a reboot.
Gaming · Control Center + ReyOS Games
Control Center's Gaming page sets everything up, and ReyOS Games is the library you play from. Pick the consoles you want and ReyOS installs only those emulators: NES, Super Nintendo, Game Boy / Color, Game Boy Advance, Genesis / Master System / Game Gear, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and GameCube / Wii. ReyOS doesn't include any games or BIOS files: you bring your own.
One screen: Your games (add games, shrink them to save space, choose where they're kept), Display (full screen or window, picture style, 3D resolution up to 4×, also applied to PlayStation 2), Controllers and Setup (emulators, a BIOS checker that puts your own BIOS files where each emulator looks, and Steam with GameMode and the performance overlay in one click). Every change shows a short confirmation.
A game library with a tab per console, search and optional box art. Right-click a game to always play it in a window, give it its own 3D resolution, shrink it, or change its controller buttons. Games start with GameMode and an optional FPS/CPU/GPU overlay (Right Shift + F12 hides it).
Step-by-step setup that shows each console's own buttons, a button layout per console (swap two buttons with one pick), and a choice of player 1 when two controllers are connected. Xbox and PlayStation-style controllers work; in a game, Start + Select opens the menu (save, load, quit).
Add games… takes a .zip, .7z, .rar, .iso or .cue for PlayStation, PlayStation 2 or PSP, works out which console it's for, and stores it in a smaller file that plays the same (one PlayStation 2 game went from 4.66 GB to 1.02 GB). Games already in the library can be shrunk too, and the originals are only deleted when you say so.
Same laptop: Ubuntu vs ReyOS
One ThinkPad (Intel Core i7-7820HQ, Intel HD 630 graphics) with Ubuntu 24.04 and ReyOS installed side by side. Same emulator (PCSX2 2.8.2 Flatpak), same game (NBA Street, PlayStation 2) at 4× resolution, 3 minutes of play, measured with MangoHud.
| Ubuntu 24.04 (3 runs) | ReyOS (1 run) | |
|---|---|---|
| Frames per second, minutes 1–2 | 59.7–60 | 59.9 (the first minute dipped to 37–56 while the game loaded) |
| Frames per second, last minute | 52.5–55 | 59.6–60 |
| CPU speed, last minute | 2.3–2.6 GHz | 3.5–3.7 GHz |
| CPU used by the emulator, last minute | 41–46% | 21–22% |
| Hottest CPU temperature | 98–100 °C | 99 °C |
Both systems ran the laptop up to its temperature limit. There, Ubuntu slowed the processor to about 2.4 GHz and the game dropped below 60 frames per second; ReyOS kept about 3.5 GHz and stayed at 60. PSP games tell the same story: God of War at 4× held 60 frames per second on ReyOS with the graphics chip about half busy, and played smoother than on Ubuntu.
Not a lab test. One ReyOS run against three Ubuntu runs; Ubuntu's emulator used Vulkan while ReyOS used OpenGL (the emulator's own pick for Intel graphics), and the ReyOS run started from a cooler laptop. Ubuntu also runs power-management services (thermald, TLP) that ReyOS doesn't, which is the likely reason for the difference, but that isn't proven yet.
Reyva · the ReyOS browser
The browser built into ReyOS runs a private, session-only profile with no persistent history — Shields blocks ads/trackers, upgrades HTTP to HTTPS, strips tracking parameters from links, and randomizes your canvas/WebGL/audio fingerprint per site, all backed by a filter list you can refresh anytime. Plus a reader mode for cleaner articles, a KWallet-backed password manager, bookmark folders, its own download manager (save each download wherever you like), and a print preview for printing or saving any page (or PDF) as a PDF. On ReyOS it takes on the colors of the Look you pick. No extensions or accounts required.
utm_*, fbclid, gclid, and similar link-tracking params are removed from navigations.Included by default on ReyOS. On Arch-based distros you build the package directly from the ReyOS source tree, not from the AUR; Ubuntu and Debian users can grab a ready-made .deb — see below.
Windows 10/11, 64-bit. A per-user installer: no admin rights needed. Saved passwords go to Windows Credential Manager, and installed web apps show up in the Start menu.
Download for Windows (151 MB)Run Reyva outside ReyOS
The browser itself is cross-distro Qt/PySide code. On Arch-based systems, build the package directly from the ReyOS repo — not from the AUR. On Ubuntu or Debian, grab the ready-made .deb below. On any other distro, use the Flatpak, which updates itself. On Windows, use the installer.
Arch-based distros
It's a real package with no ReyOS-specific runtime dependencies. This is not an AUR install: pyside6, qt6-webengine, qt6-webchannel, libnotify, kdialog, and python-secretstorage are all in the official Arch Linux repos, so makepkg handles everything:
git clone https://github.com/Reypaulino/ReyOS.git
cd ReyOS/reyos-packages/reyos-browser
makepkg -siThen launch it with reyos-browser. Works on Arch, CachyOS, Manjaro, EndeavourOS, or anything else built on pacman.
Ubuntu / Debian
A ready-made amd64 .deb is available on GitHub Releases. apt pulls in the system libraries QtWebEngine needs automatically, then sets up its own Python runtime (PySide6 + Qt WebEngine) on first install — this needs an internet connection during apt install, and can take a minute:
cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/Reypaulino/ReyOS/releases/download/reyos-browser-v0.1.0-127ubuntu1/reyos-browser_0.1.0-127ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./reyos-browser_0.1.0-127ubuntu1_amd64.debThen launch it from your app menu, or run reyos-browser.
Any distro (Flatpak)
Works anywhere Flatpak is installed: Fedora, openSUSE, Mint, Pop!_OS, Steam Deck and more. Updates arrive with your normal Flatpak updates (software center or flatpak update). The first install also pulls the KDE runtime from Flathub. Installing a site as an app works too, except on Ubuntu 24.04, where the system blocks it for every Flatpak (Ubuntu users: use the .deb above):
flatpak install --user https://reypaulino.github.io/reyva-flatpak/com.reyapps.Reyva.flatpakrefThen launch it from your app menu, or run flatpak run com.reyapps.Reyva. Prefer a single file? The Reyva.flatpak download installs the same app and updates the same way.
Windows
Download Reyva-Setup-0.1.0.113.exe and run it. It installs for your user only (to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Reyva, no admin prompt) and adds Reyva to the Start menu. The installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC": click More info → Run anyway.
Saved passwords live in Windows Credential Manager; "Install This Site as an App" adds the site to the Start menu under Reyva Web Apps with its own taskbar icon. There are no automatic updates yet: run a newer installer over the old one. Uninstall from Settings → Apps; bookmarks and settings in %APPDATA%\Reyva are kept.
Windows release notes
ReyOS WSL
A lightweight Arch/ReyOS terminal environment for Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 — ReyOS development, package building, dependency/script testing, and general dev tooling from a Windows machine, no VM required. It does not replace the ReyOS desktop ISO: no KDE Plasma, no installer, no bootloader, no hardware drivers — WSL2 supplies its own kernel and there's no desktop session to boot into.
pacstrap run on the ReyOS Dev VM — three real bugs were found and fixed that way, not by guessing. It has not yet been installed on a real Windows 11 + WSL2 machine, so treat the Windows-side steps below as untested until someone actually runs them.
x86_64, no kernel/bootloader/desktop bundled — Minimal profile by default, with Developer and ReyOS Developer profiles offered at first run.
Download ReyOS-WSL-x86_64.wslwsl --import fails with something like HCS_E_SERVICE_NOT_AVAILABLE, run wsl --install --no-distribution as admin, restart, and confirm Task Manager → Performance → CPU shows "Virtualization: Enabled" (a BIOS/UEFI setting if not — Windows can't turn this on for you).
Grab ReyOS-WSL-2026.09.02-x86_64.wsl and its checksum from the GitHub Release above, then confirm it (PowerShell):
Get-FileHash .\ReyOS-WSL-2026.09.02-x86_64.wsl -Algorithm SHA256Compare against the published .sha256 file.
Use wsl --import, not wsl --install --from-file — real-tested on Windows 11, --from-file fails with error_file_not_found against this artifact (it targets Microsoft's newer packaged .wsl format, not a plain rootfs tarball). --import takes three separate things: a distro name, a new empty folder for WSL's own use, and the file you actually downloaded — point that last one at wherever it landed (Downloads, here):
wsl --import ReyOS $env:LOCALAPPDATA\ReyOS-WSL $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\ReyOS-WSL-2026.09.02-x86_64.wsl
wsl -d ReyOSA setup wizard runs automatically on first login: pick a username and password, then choose Minimal, Developer (git, Python, Node.js, base-devel), or ReyOS Developer (adds the tools needed to actually build reyos-* packages — cmake, meson, ninja, Qt6 dev libs, and more).
WSL only picks up your new default user after a restart:
wsl -t ReyOS
wsl -d ReyOSYou're now in a ReyOS shell as your own user, with sudo and the ReyOS/CachyOS/Arch package repos configured.
Selected ReyOS GUI apps (like Reyva or ReyOS Reader) can launch through WSLg where your WSL/Windows version supports it — this hasn't been confirmed on real hardware yet. KDE Connect device pairing, Bluetooth, and hardware-dependent Control Center pages are not expected to work under WSL and aren't something this build tries to fake.
Build and run a real reyos-* package (e.g. Reyva)
First check whether GUI forwarding (WSLg) is actually available on this WSL/Windows version:
echo $WAYLAND_DISPLAY $DISPLAYIf both come back empty, there's no GUI forwarding here — CLI/build testing below still works fine, a window just won't appear. Either way, get the source and build:
git clone https://github.com/Reypaulino/ReyOS.git
cd ReyOS/reyos-packages/reyos-browser
reyos-dev-test . --install --run reyos-browserreyos-dev-test (built into the image) lints the PKGBUILD, runs a real makepkg -sf — pulling pyside6, qt6-webengine, qt6-webchannel, kirigami, and the rest straight from the official repos, no AUR — installs the result, then launches it if a real $WAYLAND_DISPLAY was found. Swap in any other reyos-packages/<name> directory to build something else.