RevyOS
Vendor derivative
Distribution
Good for newcomers
Bottom line
The de facto standard on TH1520 boards: LicheePi 4A and Milk-V Meles ship with RevyOS, and the official tutorials flash it too. The best first pick for newcomers, but note that the mirror is newer than the docs — take the latest date from the mirror directory.
- Based on
- Debian 13 (trixie) rootfs + XuanTie-customized 6.6 kernel (TH1520/SG2042 BSP); the older 20240720 build is Debian 12 + 5.10 kernel
- Upstream
- Downstream vendor distro: maintained by PLCT Lab (Institute of Software, CAS) for the XuanTie/T-Head ecosystem, reusing the Debian 13 (trixie) package archive plus a XuanTie-customized kernel. It is neither an official Debian port nor an independent package base.
- Versions
- 20260504 (2026-05-04, newest full image on the mirror) · 20251226 (2025-12-26, newest version listed in the official docs) · 20250729 (2025-07-29) · 20240720 (2024-07-20, 5.10 kernel / Debian 12 era)
- Doc languages
- zh / en
- Checked
- 2026-11-01
Boards
- LicheePi 4A Official The main reference board: SD/eMMC boot, the most complete images and docs
- Milk-V Meles Official Milk-V Meles: official image 20260504 plus a flashing tutorial
- Milk-V Pioneer (SG2042, server-oriented) Official Milk-V Pioneer (SG2042): image 20260504
- SpacemiT K3 (Pico-ITX / CoM260) Partial Provided as coreboot+OpenSBI+EDK2 firmware (Ruyi Firmware), not a full OS image
Download
Docs and videos
Pitfalls
- Version numbers are dates (YYYYMMDD), not semantic versions; the docs lag the mirror badly (docs say 20251226, the mirror already has 20260504)
- Upgrading from 20240720 or earlier requires resetting the U-Boot environment (env default -a -f; env save; reset), otherwise it won't boot
- Some SD cards are incompatible with the LicheePi 4A; the vendor maintains a compatibility list, and eMMC is the safer bet
- The 20260926/20260924 directories hold coreboot+EDK2 firmware (no U-Boot), not system images; at the default 1.84GHz you must add cooling
- GPU/NPU depend on the vendor BSP driver stack (there are separate revyos-gles-21 and NPU docs); not everything is upstream
RuyiSDK test reports5
Hands-on records from RuyiSDK, board by board. Open a report for the full install steps and verdict.
| Boards | Status | Versions | Last tested | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lichee Cluster 4A | ◐ Basic | 20240127 · 12(sipeed) · 12(lpi4a) | 2024-06-21 | Open report |
| Lichee Console 4A（not covered here） | ● Good | 20240720 | 2025-04-17 | Open report |
| LicheePi 4A | ● Good | 20251226 | 2026-03-17 | Open report |
| Milk-V Meles | ● Good | 20250526 | 2025-07-08 | Open report |
| Milk-V Pioneer (SG2042, server-oriented) | ● Good | 20251030 | 2025-10-29 | Open report |
Status meanings: good — fully usable (desktop boots); basic — basic system (serial console works); part — partial functionality; cft — image exists, needs verification; cfh — documented as supported but fails to boot; cfi — claimed supported, no image; wip — announced only.
Sources16
- mirror.iscas.ac.cn/revyos/extra/images/
- mirror.iscas.ac.cn/revyos/extra/images/lpi4a/20260504/
- mirror.iscas.ac.cn/revyos/extra/images/meles/20260504/
- mirror.iscas.ac.cn/revyos/extra/images/sg2042/20260504/
- fast-mirror.isrc.ac.cn/revyos/extra/images/lpi4a/20260504/
- docs.revyos.dev/docs/Installation/intro/
- docs.revyos.dev/docs/Installation/licheepi4a/
- docs.revyos.dev/docs/Installation/milkv-meles/
- docs.revyos.dev/docs/Installation/milkv-pioneer/
- docs.revyos.dev/en/docs/Installation/licheepi4a/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/LicheeCluster4A/RevyOS/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/LicheeConsole4A/RevyOS/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/LicheePi4A/RevyOS/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/Meles/RevyOS/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/reports/Pioneer/RevyOS/README/
- matrix.ruyisdk.org/
The full source list and how each claim is judged: Sources