Kyvos gives us AmigaOS 4 Sam460 emulation on Windows, Linux and Mac

So naturally the first question for most people reading the title of this post is, what is Kyvos?

Kyvos is an application for Linux, Mac and Windows that simplifies the setup of QEMU to emulate AmigaOne Sam 460 and Pegasos 2 to be able to run AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition.

This is a big deal as a AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition user because up until now, PPC emulation of AmigaOS 4.1 was limited to the Classic version written for PowerPC accelerated Amiga 1200/4000 systems with Cyberstorm PPC or Blizzard PPC accelerators. 

This limited emulation to AmigaOS 4.1 Classic edition, with limited graphics support, emulation system maximum memory of 128MB or 256MB of those PPC boards, and limited the speed to the fastest 266Mhz PowerPC CPU on those boards. (and yes I know you can overclock them on a real system but we are talking about emulation here). Solutions like FlowerPot from Amikit use this setup to emulate AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition, and I have covered that in this blog before, quite a while back.

It seems you can't currently purchase real physical Sam460 systems - they appear to be out of stock on their website. You can still buy the AmigaOne A1222 though if you want a physical AmigaOS 4.1 FE system.

By being able to use QEMU PPC support to run AmigaOS 4.1 as an emulated Sam460 system, we can (in theory) much faster CPU emulation, with many GB of memory and bigger unconstrained hard disk sizes. Also there is development in progress OpenGL support to explore, opening up high resolutions and hopefully in the future the ability to play some of the AmigaOS 4 games that need the more advanced modern graphics cards and 3D features now supported on the physical AmigaOne systems.

And of course, you don't have to buy an expensive AmigaOne system to try it out and decide if AmigaOS 4 is for you! You just need to buy and register the digital copy of AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition for Sam460, which is delivered as an ISO file in your user profile you setup on Hyperion's website.

There is a free 1.8.2 version of Kyvos, and a paid version 2.2 you can buy for a small fee.

I played around with Kyvos last year, but didn't have much success with it then and quickly gave up. 

With several updates since then, I decided to try Kyvos again in 2026. First with the free 1.8.2 version (i didn't see much point in buying the paid version until I got it working!). 

This time I (eventually) got Kyvos working!

I initially built this Kyvos 1.8.2 setup on my MacBook Pro (late 2013) intel based system (which also has an internal Iris and internal Nvidia discrete graphics card). 

Why did I choose this particular system? Well, because I used to use it as my main machine back in 2014, when I first got AmigaOS 4.1 emulation working under Windows 7 dual booted with BootCamp on the system (remember how great that was!). I demonstrated it at AmiWest 2014 that year on this very machine! It seemed appropriate to me to use this machine again!

But given MacOS left support for this machine (and bootcamp) behind years ago, I moved off the system  to a Mac Pro in 2020 (and now Mac Studio since 2025) and it has sat in a cupboard since then. 

I recently decided to resurrect the machine and give it a new life by installing the latest Ubuntu 26 operating system on it instead of MacOS! 

Now the system has a current, supported operating system with active security updates and updated software.

But it still needed something to make it useful - so I thought, why not make it a dedicated AmigaOS 4.1 computer using Kyvos? Why not, indeed! 

I also copied the Kyvos hard disk setups I built on this laptop to my Mac Studio too, so I can use it on a faster (but not portable) machine. 

Kyvos is also available on MacOS as well, although I should stress that it is reliant on the Rosetta legacy Intel support under MacOS Tahoe and earlier, which sadly disappears with the upcoming new MacOS Golden Gate release. Hopefully Kyvos will be updated to work with Apple M CPU chips before that happens. 

I wanted to share the experience of building Kyvos, as unfortunately even with the fantastic documentation it is not trivial or easy. The paid version addresses some of this ease of installation.

I also wanted to show the issues I found along the way, the caveats to be aware of with the setup and so on. This is definitely not a click Next > Next > Next > Finish setup process.

I hope this helps anyone else trying to get Kyvos working on their setup.

Make sure you follow the instructions in the included documentation carefully. There is a lot of detailed steps, and you have to do them all.

Working on my Ubuntu 26 MacBook pro, I set to work installing the various dependencies needed for Kyvos via apt-get install commands in the Terminal. 

When you run Kyvos, it will check to see if all the required programs are installed yet or not. Qemu and it's various components being the main ones.

Eventually I got all the programs needed installed on Ubuntu and the Kyvos requirements checklist passed and let me proceed.

Next it needs to download some more files to proceed. Unlike the dependencies above, it offers to download them for you. Seems to me this would be an obvious area to improve in the setup to make it easier.

 No idea where it is downloading them from, but obviously you need internet access! Once done, it checks again and allows me to proceed.

I then followed the instructions to setup the initial virtual hard disk image needed for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition to be installed on:

It defaults to 512MB but I increased it to 1024MB as I know that is a bit too small. Disk was created successfully.

I then copied the required AmigaOS 4.1 final edition iso file, and the 3 lha updates for AmigaOS 4.1 final edition (all obtained from the Hyperion website using my registered account) to the SourceFiles folder on my Ubuntu system, ready for the next step. 

Next is creating the new Virtual Machine in the Kyvos GUI that will run using QEmu. 

For the virtual machine, I specified AmigaOS4 - Sam460ex as the system type, and the destination path should be done without spaces in it - same for the ISO/files path. It is very picky about that so don't put any spaces in it.

With that step done and VM created, I can close the window and see the new VM in the Kyvos GUI:

The Kyvos setup takes care of connecting the hard disk to the VM, and setting up all the settings needed in the VM, and attaching the AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition iso file to the system. So all you have to do here is power it on!

The QEmu virtual machine launches and boots AmigaOS 4.1 final edition from the attached iso.

And voila, AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition installation CD has booted up in QEmu and ready for me to start preparing the hard disk for installation!

I followed the instructions to prepare the hard disk, which involves installing the Sam460 boot loader on the hard disk.

I then prepared the partition on the hard disk, again following the instructions closely for the required configuration of the hard disk, using SFS/02 and updating the max transfer flags.

I made sure to set the new drive partition DH0 as automount and set boot priority so the system will boot from the hard disk first and not the CD! 

The changes to the hard disk require a reboot to be seen, so I got that done.

After that I could boot from the CD ISO again and then start the AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition installation to the hard disk:

I selected DH0 as the target and then got it to format the disk since that has not been done yet,

It was at this point it, umm, well, failed. completely.

Undeterred, I rebooted Ubuntu and tried again. This time it worked fine. No idea what happened!

The copy of files got underway and I went for the obligatory coffee.

Copy was completed successfully and installed on the hard disk.

Reboot time:

After the reboot I got a purple desktop screen which was very hard to read. The documentation mentioned this issue,  and that I needed to change the screen resolution in the Workbench. 

I did this, but wonder why the required screen mode prefs file couldn't be installed as part of the installation to avoid this problem. I think this is because the USB "stick" support in AmigaOS 4.1 in Kyvos doesn't work until Updates 1,2 and 3 are installed.

As per the instructions, I setup AHI next for audio output using the detected Soundblaster 128 sound card in QEmu:

Now I have a working Sam460 emulation on Ubuntu 26 on my MacBook Pro!

There is still plenty of setup work to do though! I powered off the emulation (closed the window)

I then prepared a second virtual hard disk in the Kyvos GUI as I wanted a seperate (larger) disk to put the applications, games, demos, mods and other data I wanted to use. I created a 4GB hard disk. You can attach up to three virtual hard disk files to the emulation in Kyvos:

I booted up the virtual machine again, and ran the Media toolbox to prepare the second hard disk for use, as I did for the original one which is now DH0. AmigaOS 4.1 FE can see the new hard disk I created:

I then confirmed the size settings were detected correctly - no boot loader needed on this drive as it is not the boot drive.  All good.

Next I created the new DH1 partition and setup as SFS/02 file system, as I did for the DH0 partition, and updated the MaxTransfer field too.

I saved the changes,  and the drive then appears on the desktop. This then allows me to select it, and select the format disk option from the top title bar menu on the Workbench screen. 

With that done, I now have a drive with some decent space. The next issue, how to get data onto it?

Well before I get to that, I had a more annoying concern to resolve. Namely, how to launch Kyvos on Ubuntu 26. 

The program as supplied is not "installed" as such, like other application and tools you might install via the various application installers like apt-get, snap, or "insert your favourite installer method tool here". 

Why we can't have a single app store for managing all this stuff in Linux is beyond me. I can hear people complaining already about the need for choice, different tools work better for some cases and not others, etc etc. Yeah, yeah. And while you are moaning about that, which Linux window manager do you prefer to use and why? Yikes, how to get into a serious argument with a linux fan...

Choice is nice to have I know, but choice can also be confusing as hell, especially in Linux where choice is totally overwhelming. 

Give me a single window manager and single app store to work with any day. Anyway, moving on.

Kyvos is an executable program (and an AppImage) you put in your HOME folder somewhere. Under Ubuntu 26 I can't drag it into the quick launch bar on the left side, which is of course where I want it. 

Having to find it in the file manager every time is not what I want, so I need to work out how to do that.

Sadly there are no instructions for this part in the documentation included. At least, I didn't see any. So, being the modern world of AI tools, I consulted Claude on how to do it..missing dependencies it seems. 

You see that it doesn't take long to be reminded that Linux is a serious pain in the arse when things don't work. Missing libraries, missing dependencies, editing config files, using command line terminal commands. 

As it has always been. The Linux window manager and system hides a unexpected world of terminal command lines, scripts and dependencies pain, just waiting for you to explore with any new application you want to use on it.

I tolerate linux in small doses when I feel like tinkering, but quickly get frustrated by how often it ends up like this - nearly always. Hence why I load it on older machines rather than daily drivers...

Now if you run linux and never have these problems - well done. I am impressed - you must stick purely to the applications in the included app store on your distribution only. To my knowledge that would be the only way to avoid this!

I went back to Claude, and it also reminds me I needs to create a .desktop launcher file and register it as an application on my system in order to then launch from the dock. 

Seriously - this .desktop launcher file should be included with the software and instructions on how to get it working. I realise if you run a much older Ubuntu 22/24 release this problem I had may not be a problem for you, but Ubuntu 26 is the current release and too common to ignore when creating linux versions of software. 

Claude explains the issue well and the steps I need to follow to fix:

Are you still here? 

If you hate linux, don't worry, I did this setup on Windows and MacOS later on in this post which was much less painful!

In the meantime, yay , terminal time again as I follow the steps.

Since no png icon file was included, I made my own looking for a boing ball png file on the internet. Another thing that should really be included...

I put the Kyvos files into its own folder under Home called Kyvos. I then created the .desktop file in the same folder so everything stays in the same place.

With that done and the remaining steps from claude to register the application from the desktop file, I could find Kyvos in the application list under Ubuntu (clicking the Ubuntu "start" menu button on bottom left) then right click to pin Kyvos to the dock on the left side. 

This is something I really would like to see improved - it is much too difficult, and requires plenty of familiarity with linux to do. Even though I do know linux a bit, I am not an expert in it, and still needed to research to get it working.

Anyway, now that the launcher is sorted out, we can get back to Kyvos virtual machine setup for AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition. 

Next order of business is increasing the memory of the system to 2GB instead of the default 1GB in the Hardware tab of the VM configuration. Make sure to click Save changes on each tab when changes are made.

I then created a 500mb_usb folder for the  update lha files for AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition. I had Updates 1 and 2 initially, and downloaded the 2025 released update 3 later on.

So, next is connecting the 500mb_usb folder to the USB path option in the Media tab of the VM in Kyvos. This "usb stick" is limited to 500MB, so you need to make sure whatever is in it is under that total size. Also, no spaces in the folder name.

I then launched the VM and AmigaOS 4.1 FE workbench desktop appeared with the 500MB usb drive now mounted on the desktop:

I extracted the two archives to the DH1: drive:

I then stepped through the Update 1 install, which proceeded with no issues:

After a reboot, Update 2 was next, and again proceeded without a problem:

After the reboot we are now on AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition update 2.

Next was downloading Update 3 (released last year in 2025) from Hyperion's website. As mentioned, you need a login there, and register your copy of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition (serial number) to it in order to be able to download the update files.

With the files downloaded, I could then transfer the files to the 500mb_usb folder:

Note that the virtual machine cannot see the updated files when you update them from the Ubuntu/Windows/Mac side. You need to close the VM and relaunch it.

I extracted the Update 3 and ISO file to DH1 also. The reason is so I can use it from within the emulation without needing to connect it to the ISO option every time.

I also created an Applications drawer on DH1. My intention is to store applications here rather than on the system DH0 drive.

I then proceeded with the AmigaOS 4.1 FE Update 3 installation:

Again, as with Update 1 and 2, Update 3 installed without any problems:

With the reboot done after Update 3 installed, I now have an update to date AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition installation using Kyvos:

What is very cool when you launch Sam460 emulation on Kyvos is that the Sam460 BIOS screen appears on the display briefly. It was hard to grab a screen shot so I got out the iPhone to catch it:

I changed the Kyvos configuration to launch full screen rather than a window, and so now it feels much more like a AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition system rather than Ubuntu..

FYI you can use CTRL-ALT-F to exit full screen mode.

Naturally I wanted to install lot more software on the machine, so I moved over to my AmigaObne A1222 system to transfer files to a real USB stick. Many GB's of files.

Being limited to 500MB usb stick means I had to be careful with how much I copied into the folder at a time to install. So initially I wanted to work on installing the A-Eon Enhancer package:

 

This Enhancer package provides more gfx driver support, many applications, tools, drivers and libraries.

It takes a long time to install this package because there is a lot in it. So I watched some TV (F1 actually) while walking through it.

I got to work - I won't bore you with all the steps - I have covered the Enhancer installation on this blog before if you want to see all the details of it.

The installation completed successfully.

Enhancer includes the x-dock as a replacement for the standard Amidock included with AmigaOS 4.1 final edition - your own decision on which one you prefer, but make sure to disable which one you don't want so you don't end up with two of them on every boot - you can turn on and off in the WBStartup prefs:

With that sorted, I can now use the updated graphics drivers included in Enhancer to increase the screen mode to something far more appropriate:

Now AmigaOS 4.1 FE looks great on the MacBook Pro:

I ran through he instructions in the Kyvos documentation to configure the internet preferences using the new connection wizard so I can use the internet from AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition:

I selected LAN connection type and used the RTL8139 driver:

I used DHCP settings and the wizard completed successfully.

The network was brought up and I tested it - all good:

I fired up iBrowse (which can be installed from the AmiagOS 4.1 FE ISO via the Extras installation (as shown in the Kyvos instructions) to check internet is working and sure enough - all good. Uses the wireless connection on Ubuntu 26 just fine!

Sadly, although I can install the system ok, I ran into serious performance issues running any applications on this setup on the MacBook Pro 2013. 

Sound was not good either when moving windows around - even just playing a module file in TuneNet would cause big slowdowns moving windows around. Clearly the emulation runs too slowly to be usable on the Macbook Pro. It needs a newer machine to run well.

At this point I switched to my Mac Studio computer and copied the virtual hard disk folder from the Ubuntu laptop to it. 

I then setup Kyvos on the Mac to work with it, again following the instructions. MacOS Tahoe also need dependencies installed before it will work - as with the Linux version it checks for them on startup to make sure they are present. Don't forget to set the display settings to use cocoa and not sdl on MacOS. I couldn't get that working at all on MacOS. YMMV.

By doing the transfer of the hard disk from the Ubuntu 26 laptop, I could very quickly get AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition running on my Mac Studio using Kyvos also.

On my Mac I didn't experience the slowdowns I had on the MacBook pro, so I was happy to see that at least. However, I wanted this to work on a laptop, not on my desktop Mac that I can't travel with.

At this point, since the setup now worked on MacOS and Linux, I decided to take the plunge and buy the 2.2 release of Kyvos from the author.

I then followed the instructions to install Kyvos 2.2 and dependencies on my 2022 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Core i7 laptop, which runs Windows 11. Being 9 years newer than the MacBook pro, I expected it would work way better.

I set to work creating a VM on it, and then transferred my existing hard disk images from the MacBook pro across to this laptop - I had no interest in doing the installation all over again.

On my Windows 11 laptop, I created an AmigaOS4FE folder on the root c:\ to keep all the files in.

I can use SDL support fine with Kyvos on the Windows 11 laptop, and I power it on and it booted up as I expected it to.

One thing I found is that I had to ALT tab to switch between the BIOS emulation and the main emulation for some reason. On the other machines this ran from one emulation - not sure what is happening there.

But it works fine.

As I took an earlier hard disk build, I had to re-setup the internet connection under amigaOS4.1 FE again, but this was quickly done and worked fine as per the instructions:

I tested with iBrowse and it accessed the internet just fine, which will make updating it much easier now.

I noted that there is a some software uploaded to allow host file system mounting from within AmigaOS 4.1 FE - I'll have to try that out later!

I copied across some games to try out. I should mention a few things here for this - openGL games require the virtuoGPL driver, whnbich apparently is included in a future enhancer version from A-Eon and is not pubnlically available at this time.

I don't have it either, so I can only test 2D games that don't need OpenGL, or the advancedgfx card features using Warp3D Nova, etc. This is coming though - so I look forward to trying it out when it is available.

In the meantime I tried out some desktop games which worked well enough:

BOH worked well also:

The Legend of Edgar was another game that worked well on the emulated AmigaOS 4.1 FE system on my Lenovo laptop:

Playback of MP3's in AmigaAmp while doing other tasks was also fine, no slowdown or problems.

Mounting the AmigaOS 4.1 FE ISO within the AmigaOS 4.1 setup also worked well, allowing me to install the extras from the CD.

Quake (using non-accelerated mode) worked ok in the beginning as shown below, but in the main levels in the game, the levels were completely dark so I guess it is using some effects that need the OpenGL support.

Candy Crisis and Hexen worked well:

The AmigaOS 4 port of Metal Slug also runs well too, as does Gigamania (Mega Lo Mania clone):

I am looking forward to explore further and keep a close eye on the future development for Kyvos, as there is a lot of active development in this solution at the moment. There are many updates in 2026, and future plans working with A-Eon for OpenGL support is exciting - opening up more games to work under emulation using Kyvos without having to own the original hardware.

I hope this post was interesting, and encourages you to explore AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, whether via emulation (Kyvos/Flowerpot) or the actual AmigaOne Sam460, X1000, X5000 or A1222 hardware if you have it! The operating system is still being actively updated, with new commercial games like Entwickler-X's Radon break, and other software and utilities being released often on os4depot.net and elsewhere!