AvyOS

A Linux-based operating system written entirely in pure Go —
no external packages, no CGO, no POSIX compatibility.

avyos is an operating system project. It uses the Linux kernel for hardware support and booting, but rethinks the “system layer” (init, services, core tools, UI stack) in pure Go with CGO disabled.

If you’re not an OS person: you can think of avyos as “a Linux-based OS image with its own Go-written system core”.

What makes it different?

• Immutable system core

The OS core is mounted at /avyos and treated as read-only at runtime.

• Clear separation of state

Apps, configuration, user data, and runtime files live in separate writable locations (/apps, /config, /users, /cache).

• Service-driven capabilities

Instead of letting apps poke low-level system resources directly, privileged operations are intended to be exposed via services and accessed through authenticated IPC.

• Optional Linux compatibility layer

A distro root filesystem can be provided at /linux and run in a restricted container for compatibility and reuse of existing Linux userland resources.

For the detailed system breakdown and code map, see ARCHITECTURE.md.

You can try avyos in QEMU using prebuilt release images.

Option A: One-command runner (recommended)

This tool downloads the right release ZIP for your architecture and starts QEMU:

go run avyos.dev/tools/runimage@latest

Supported flags (from tools/runimage):

• --arch <arch>: target architecture (default: your host GOARCH, e.g. amd64, arm64)
• --branch <name>: release tag/branch to download (default: main)
• --cpu <n>: CPU cores for QEMU (default: 2)
• --memory <size>: RAM for QEMU (default: 2G)
• --vnc <display>: start VNC server (example :0)
• --dbg-port <port>: forward host:port → guest:5037 (default: 5037, 0 disables)

Any extra arguments after the flags are passed directly to QEMU.

Examples:

go run avyos.dev/tools/runimage@latest --vnc :0

go run avyos.dev/tools/runimage@latest --cpu 4 --memory 4G

go run avyos.dev/tools/runimage@latest --dbg-port 0

Requirements: Go + QEMU installed on your machine.

Option B: Download a release ZIP and run QEMU manually

Releases are published on GitHub Releases page

Each release provides assets arch-specific ZIP named like:

• avyos-<release>-amd64.zip
• avyos-<release>-arm64.zip

The ZIP contains:

• disk.img
• firmware
• variables

Unzip it, then run QEMU from that directory.

amd64

qemu-system-x86_64    \
  -smp 2 -m 2G        \
  -serial mon:stdio   \
  -nic user,model=virtio-net-pci,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:5037-:5037   \
  -vga none           \
  -device virtio-gpu-pci \
  -device virtio-keyboard-pci \
  -device virtio-mouse-pci   \
  -drive if=pflash,file=firmware,readonly=on,format=raw \
  -drive if=pflash,file=variables,format=raw \
  -drive file=disk.img,format=raw

arm64

qemu-system-aarch64   \
  -M virt -cpu cortex-a57   \
  -smp 2 -m 2G        \
  -serial mon:stdio   \
  -nic user,model=virtio-net-pci,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:5037-:5037   \
  -vga none           \
  -device virtio-gpu-pci \
  -device virtio-keyboard-pci \
  -device virtio-mouse-pci   \
  -drive if=pflash,file=firmware,readonly=on,format=raw \
  -drive if=pflash,file=variables,format=raw \
  -drive file=disk.img,format=raw

Notes:

• The networking rule forwards host TCP 5037 to the guest dbgd service on 5037. Remove the hostfwd=... part if you don’t want it.
• Add -vnc :0 to enable VNC output.

• Building and running from source: BUILDING.md
• Architecture: ARCHITECTURE.md
• Developer workflows: DEVELOPERS.md
• Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md

See LICENSE.