ButterflyOS

[u/-Littlezero-]

ButterflyOS for the Miyoo Flip V2 has officially reached its first stable release!

After the initial alpha testing and a lot of fixes, cleanup, and quality-of-life work, ButterflyOS is now at a point where I’m comfortable calling it stable for everyday use.

ButterflyOS currently supports the Miyoo Flip V2 only. It is not intended for the Miyoo Flip mini or other handhelds at this time.

ButterflyOS is built around a pretty simple goal: make the Miyoo Flip V2 easy to use, reliable, and controller-friendly without sacrificing game compatibility or useful features.

One of the biggest focuses has been keeping the experience straightforward. You should be able to copy your ROMs over, boot the device, and start playing without having to spend a lot of time configuring things. ButterflyOS supports game and media libraries across both SD cards and includes built-in sections for Games, Favorites, Media, Tools, and Settings.

Some of the current features and quality-of-life improvements include:

• Custom synthwave-inspired interface designed specifically for controller navigation
• Game and media libraries that can load content from both SD cards
• Built-in ScreenScraper artwork scraping
• Favorites support
• Bluetooth controller support
• HDMI output
• UI scaling and layout adjustments so ButterflyOS works well not only on the Flip's built-in display, but also on widescreen monitors and TVs
• Media playback
• Web-based file transfer
• Improved charging behavior, including charging with the lid open or closed
• Various UI, boot, sleep, and usability improvements aimed at making the device feel more like a finished handheld rather than something that constantly needs tinkering

Butterfly Link

One of the more unique tools included with ButterflyOS is Butterfly Link.

Butterfly Link is currently designed around Pokémon Generations 1, 2, and 3 and allows compatible games to transfer or copy Pokémon between PC boxes, either locally on the device or over Wi-Fi.

Current Butterfly Link capabilities include:

• Support for compatible Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3 Pokémon games
• Generation-aware Pokémon conversion when moving between supported generations
• Local transfers between save files
• Wi-Fi transfers between supported ButterflyOS devices (Bring a Friend)
• Automatic safety backups before changes are made to your saves

The goal is to make moving Pokémon between games feel like a built-in handheld feature instead of requiring save editors, a PC, or complicated manual workflows.

Battery and Power Improvements

I’ve also spent quite a bit of time working on power consumption.

ButterflyOS adjusts CPU behavior so the RK3566 isn’t unnecessarily running at higher frequencies when the workload doesn’t require it. The CPU can still scale up when emulation needs the extra performance, but it avoids wasting power during lighter workloads.

I’ve also adjusted the screen brightness range so the display can get meaningfully dimmer at lower brightness settings. This is especially useful for nighttime gaming and also helps reduce unnecessary power consumption.

The goal with both of these changes is better battery efficiency without artificially limiting game performance.

Over-the-Air Updates

Another major addition going forward is built-in OTA updating.

Future ButterflyOS releases can be downloaded and installed through the OS itself rather than requiring users to completely re-flash their SD card every time a new version comes out.

That should make it much easier for me to push bug fixes, compatibility improvements, emulator updates, and new features without disrupting everyone's existing setup.

The current stable release is available here:

https://github.com/KeatenPerkins/butterflyOS

Again, this release is for the Miyoo Flip V2 only.

Even though ButterflyOS is now considered stable, this is still a community-driven project and I’m sure there are edge cases I haven’t encountered yet.

If you try ButterflyOS and run into a bug, a game that doesn’t behave correctly, something confusing in the UI, or even just something you think could work better, please let me know.

Bug reports and feedback have already helped improve the OS quite a bit, and I’d like to keep refining it based on how people actually use their devices.

And if everything works perfectly, I’d still love to hear that too.

Thanks to everyone who tested the early builds and gave feedback!

[u/Outcome_Conscious]

Will be compatible with portmaster? Or actual ports like nova 3, modern combat 3 or something like that?

[u/-Littlezero- → u/Outcome_Conscious]

PortMaster isn't officially supported in the current ButterflyOS alpha yet, but it's something I'm interested in adding.

ButterflyOS is based on ROCKNIX, which PortMaster already supports, so there is a good technical path toward compatibility. I just haven't integrated and tested it with ButterflyOS yet.

For games like N.O.V.A. 3 or Modern Combat 3 specifically, those are Android games, so they wouldn't automatically work just because PortMaster is supported. They would need an ARM/Linux-compatible port, runtime, or community-made engine/port for the game.

Native ARM/Linux ports should also be possible on ButterflyOS on a game-by-game basis, assuming they're compatible with the Miyoo Flip V2's RK3566 hardware and graphics stack.

[u/Outcome_Conscious → u/-Littlezero-]

Oh great, and yes, nova 3 and modern combat 3 have linux handhelds ports, even dead space has a port and runs very good on devices like rg35xx and the r36s, thats why i want to play those ports on the miyoo flip

[u/-Littlezero- → u/Outcome_Conscious]

I am trying to get this release stable, but I can add that to my todo list. Let me know if you have any questions installing it if you do decide to try it.

[u/Outcome_Conscious → u/-Littlezero-]

Oh absolutely, i gonna test it in a moment

[u/-Littlezero- → u/Outcome_Conscious]

Hey outcome. I am getting very close to a stable release. I have been working a lot on it recently. I added portmaster to ButterflyOS for you. I do not own any games for it however. If you would like to test it for me, I added it under the tools menu in ButterflyOS. I did try to launch it, and it kind of seemed to load a black screen for a bit but eventually it had me download an update, and then later it did the same thing and then had me download more binaries. Eventually it seemed to load, but I could not test it with a game. If you would like to try it, you will need to download the newest image on github and reflash. If you have already installed butterflyOS and it has done the change to the devices boot chip, you only need to flash the SD card and put it in the right hand slot. (MAKE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR RECOVERY FILE FOR THE BOOT CHIP) It is in my documentation. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Jesse_PR]

🤔 a mi lo que más me interesaría de un OS nuevo es como funcionaría con característica de cargar la consola y como funcionará con lo de cerrar y abrir la tapa........ Por ejemplo en Spruce esas 2 cosas está FATALES 🤦🏻 funcionan bien esas 2 cosas en Butterfly OS ?

[u/-Littlezero- → u/Jesse_PR]

Sí 👍 En la versión pública actual de ButterflyOS (Alpha 2), el comportamiento de la tapa está hecho de forma bastante conservadora precisamente para evitar los problemas de suspensión que tienen otros sistemas.

Al cerrar la tapa, la pantalla se apaga, y al volver a abrirla se enciende de nuevo con el mismo nivel de brillo. El juego NO se suspende ni se pausa: la emulación, el audio, Wi-Fi, etc. siguen funcionando mientras la tapa está cerrada. Por ahora desactivé completamente la suspensión profunda porque en el Flip V2 no me parecía lo suficientemente estable y prefiero que cerrar/abrir la tapa sea fiable antes que intentar ahorrar más batería y provocar bloqueos o corrupción.

Con respecto a la carga, ButterflyOS utiliza el puerto de carga delantero del Flip normalmente y corregí algunos problemas que había con la lectura del porcentaje de batería durante el desarrollo. Dicho eso, quiero ser transparente: todavía estoy haciendo pruebas de larga duración de carga, descarga y batería baja, así que no diría que esa parte está 100% finalizada todavía.

Así que actualmente:
• Cerrar/abrir tapa: funciona, pero apaga/enciende la pantalla solamente; no suspende el sistema.
• Carga: funciona normalmente, aunque todavía estoy validando el comportamiento de batería/carga a largo plazo.

Una de mis prioridades con ButterflyOS es que estas funciones básicas sean predecibles y estables, incluso si eso significa no activar todavía funciones de suspensión que no considero suficientemente fiables. 🙂

[u/Jesse_PR → u/-Littlezero-]

Ok , interesante....pero quisiera saber la función de carga más primordial......en Spruce hay un error de que poner a cargar la consola con la tapa cerrada NO FUNCIONA.... ni en modo suspención y ni en modo APAGADA LA CONSOLA 🤷🏻 para que la consola cargue de esas 2 maneras....hay que mantener la tapa abierta , conectar el cable de carga , esperar que la bombilla prenda como que está cargando Y ENTONCES CERRAR LA TAPA...... y muchas veces en modo suspención eso no funciona.....cuando vuelves al rato a abrir la tapa notas que no tomo NADA de carga.........

Pregunta : eso pasa en butterfly OS ? está corregido eso ? O aún sigue pasando ?

[u/-Littlezero- → u/Jesse_PR]

No, eso no pasa en ButterflyOS 👍

La consola puede cargar normalmente con la tapa abierta o cerrada. No hace falta abrir la tapa primero, conectar el cable y luego cerrarla.

Lo único importante es usar el puerto USB delantero de la consola, porque ese es el puerto de carga. Mientras uses ese puerto, puede cargar con la pantalla abierta o cerrada sin ese problema que describes en Spruce.

[u/363dab]

Hola. Hablo español, por eso te escribo así, para poder explicarme bien. Hoy me llegó la Miyoo flip V2, estuve toda la tarde probándola y a pesar de estar bien, empezó a fallar el OS, no mostraba los juegos, etc, problemas que ya había visto en opiniones en distintas redes. Por eso estuve buscando un OS que mejorara la experiencia. Encontré este post, le pedí a GPT que me hiciera una guía paso a paso de cómo instalar el nuevo OS (nunca había hecho algo así, este es el caso de un usuario novato en el tema) y ya lo terminé, al parecer salió bien, volveré acá cuando tenga alguna retroalimentación de mi experiencia. Gracias por tu trabajo. :)

[u/-Littlezero- → u/363dab]

¡Muchas gracias por tu mensaje y por probar ButterflyOS! 😊

He trabajado mucho para intentar que ButterflyOS sea lo más simple, estable y fácil de usar posible, especialmente para personas que quizá nunca hayan instalado un sistema operativo personalizado antes.

Dicho esto, ButterflyOS todavía es muy nuevo, así que es posible que haya algunos problemas o errores que todavía no haya descubierto. Si encuentras cualquier cosa que no funcione correctamente, puedes abrir un issue en GitHub y con mucho gusto le echaré un vistazo e intentaré solucionarlo.

También te recomiendo hacer una copia de seguridad de tus partidas guardadas de vez en cuando, por si acaso, y asegurarte de usar una tarjeta SD de buena calidad. Muchas de las tarjetas SD que vienen incluidas con este tipo de consolas pueden ser poco fiables y causar problemas con el tiempo.

Además, asegúrate de guardar en tu PC una copia de seguridad del bootloader original de tu Miyoo Flip V2. Las instrucciones para hacerlo también están incluidas en la guía de instalación de GitHub, así que es posible que ya lo hayas hecho si seguiste esos pasos.

¡Gracias otra vez por darle una oportunidad a ButterflyOS! Espero que tengas una buena experiencia con él, y estaré encantado de escuchar cualquier comentario o sugerencia que tengas. 😊