It is also first in the Distrowatch rank
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=cachyos
I distro hopped to it from Bazzite a couple of months ago, and I could not be happier.
If you try the installer, be careful when selecting multiples DE/WM as the conflicts were not listed anywhere for the installation process.
Picking a single environment and then adding the others later was what worked for me.
I’m also a user, it’s arch but more
ezintuitive, it also have some popular precomp aur pkg in the repo.While I will most likely never switch from pure arch, I’m very happy that we’re getting more and more polished distros for everyday use.
I’m pretty happy with Nobara at the moment, but if I hopped at this point it’d probably be to CachyOS
It’s cool so many people are going with arch based distros. I’ve been on vanilla arch and had nearly zero issues. I like the idea of the optimizations Cachy provides but I’m not certain how much of a difference that would make and if that’d be worth it. I suspect it’s not a crazy large difference and therefore any flavor of arch including vanilla is probably sufficient, let alone all the successful distros that aren’t arch based.
What’s the difference between this and a fresh install of Arch with a DE like KDE/Gnome?
I’ve been using Arch for so long now that if I bought a new machine I would find it hard to try anything else.
Pretty much everything. Seperate package repo shipping cpu modern optimized binaries, custom kernel, and a ton of gaming and preformance related patches applied ontop of various packages. As well as a gui installer.
Arch gives you a bare bones DE, and you have to install/configure everything yourself.
CachyOS gives you a larger volume of default applications in a basic install, and lots of the stuff comes with useful configs out of the box. It also has hardware specific optimisations for multiple generations of CPU in its repos, but how much of a difference that makes in the real world is unclear
I did some Benchmarks and CachyOS claims of around 15% more performance seem to be true. Unigin Heavenbenchmark , Super Tuxkart and Furmark all got improved scores compared to PopOS. Additionally Fallout 4 now runs a lot smoother which is probably due to the BORE scheduler doing something better. My local LLMs also seem to be slightly faster and for some reason now need less V-Ram.
My local LLMs also seem to be slightly faster and for some reason now need less V-Ram.
This is likely due to zram being setup by default
The hell is zram?
You know how you can compress files? It work for ram as well.
Basically it compresses your data in the RAM. Needs a little more work form the CPU but it is still faster than swap. fyi
Interesting thank you!
I had zram setup on my previous OS as well and on cachy the LLM didn’t need to use it while on my old OS it did. My guess would be that the driver had a little less overhead.
It would still use zram if it’s setup, only way it wouldn’t is if you gone out of your way to disable it. Combine zram and the bore scheduler and it’s going to run better for sure.
But if the LLM stays in the V-RAM or even just stays in normal RAM does it still benefit from zram? I thought that only helped when the ram was not enough.
So I’d say it is more likely the bore scheduler + better drivers.
To add a tiny bit of technical detail here, vanilla Arch enforces support for x86_64 v1, meaning all software available in the Arch repos is built to not use any cpu feature that didn’t exist in v1. Not a bad thing since it allows for support of older (64 bit) hardware, but it does leave like 20 years of microarchitecture advancement on the table.
According to the CachyOS website, they have repos with software built for v3 and v4 which can apparently juice your rig for an extra 20% performance.
Everything.
Mostly, it’s just too convenient, but it’s way more than just a preset. I wouldn’t go back to vanilla Arch if you paid me.
I think it’s aimed more at newbies than seasoned veterans like yourself.
Only different config, since it’s based on arch.
They have their own pacman-mirror, pacman is set up to download a lot more in parallel and they set the scheduler formerly known as “cachy”, which is supposedly really good for a snappy UX.
It’s a lot more than that. It doesn’t fork Arch like Manjaro, but they have tons of custom and extremely convenient and useful packages in their repos. It’s also a living “optimization experiment” in the vein of Intel’s Clear Linux (may it rest in peace).
Theoretically, you could replicate it in vanilla arch, but I can’t imagine how many man-hours it would take.
I am a CachyOS acolyte. It’s my end boss distro.
If you try the installer, be careful when selecting multiples DE/WM as the conflicts were not listed anywhere for the installation process.
Yeah, they do need to clean up the installer a bit. It’s also not quite turnkey for a Windows dual-boot.
I know this is an unpopular opinion at the moment but I currently think Bazzite is still my favorite for the ROG Ally
The RogAlly is not Cachy’s objective. It’s for regular desktop use.
They do in fact have a handheld edition. I use it for my steam deck and it’s great.
I believe they have a handheld distro that they use too. I heard it got a big update or something recently.
Totally fine, yeah I use fedora for laptop, the Ally is only for gaming as I don’t have a desktop setup
Edit: changed to laptop as desktop was confusing
I use Manjaro on my Ally X 😝
(Also to my fellow ally owners, fingerprint reader support is coming soon I think)
Nobara is my kingdom. Had a pretty bad experience with cachyOS…
Pretty much the same performance but Fedora stability. My only issue is that the major release upgrade path has been janky for some users.
yeah last week I tried Nobara again after not using it for several months. wanted the KDE Plasma 6.6 update. nope. GE hadn’t done the monthly sync yet. when is the monthly sync? whenever he feels like it. Sorry I can’t use a distro that’s based on the whims of one guy. don’t get me wrong I like GE, I like his Protons, but Nobara needs a team behind it.
CachyOS is awesome. I just switched a few months ago after the praises from SomeOrdinaryGamer. I also wanted to use hyprland again after using plasma for sometime. It’s amazing that Cachy lets me use the hyprland DE, but also has libraries to let me run kde software without the need for plasma.
It’s amazing that Cachy lets me use the hyprland DE, but also has libraries to let me run kde software without the need for plasma.
Which distribution doesn’t allow to run KDE software on non-KDE desktops? How would this even be possible?
I’m using NixOS and I have had no problems gaming. Getting the kernel from CachyOS is also easy enough, if you want that.
I have my NixOS set up the same way, with the CachyOS kernel and the CachyOS Proton for Steam.
on another machine I have regular Arch but also uses the CachyOS Kernel and I also use the CachyOS repos for that. Honestly it’s CachyOS without all the extra bloat. And that’s my own gripe about CachyOS itself. its’ great, it just comes with a lot of crap attached to it making the install one of the longest out of any distro I’ve ever used. they really need to trim the fat on it.
What I would suggest to people is install Arch with the CachyOS Kernel and Repo. you’ll essentially have CachyOS without all the crap.
I’m trying a conversion from endeavorOS with CachyOS repositories, it was pretty seamless, I can keep my settings and endeavorOS theming, and allegedly you can switch back at any time. The cachyOS wiki has a short script for converting vanilla arch or endeavorOS to use cachyOS binaries. Been running for about a week and haven’t noticed any problems.
I was going to go with arch on my new linux build but I think I have to RMA the board. I may go with this given the extra time I now have.
Landed on Cachy after Ubuntu> Mint > Bazzite. Wish I had just skipped Mint and Bazzite. A lot of DEs too, so it’s kind of however you like it.
What do you prefer about Catchy over Bazzite. I’m currently using Bazzite but not in love with it. I mean it’s just an OS that works for my gaming and browsing.
Sometimes you gotta know what you don’t like to really understand what you do like.
