cachyOS It's back with an ISO that doesn't just update packages: Delve deeper into accessibility, performance, and user experience, for both desktop and portable devices. This November release It arrives in the midst of a period of activity in the GNU/Linux ecosystem, where practically every week a new version of some important distro appears, key packages are renewed and gaming performance continues to be a constant battleground.
Beyond the headlines, this version of CachyOS brings changes that are noticeable in everyday use, including performance improvements: A more accessible installer, stronger systemd integration at boot, better support for modern GPUs and laptops like the ROG Ally, and a more polished gaming experience thanks to Proton-CachyOSLet's break down everything this ISO brings, also connecting it with the context of the rest of the "Linuxverse" to better understand its importance.
A CachyOS ISO that finally prioritizes accessibility from the very beginning.
One of the most striking aspects of this image is that, finally, accessibility is no longer just an afterthought. The ISO includes the Orca screen reader and the espeak-ng speech synthesizer as standard, both in the live media and the installer.This allows visually impaired people to install CachyOS without relying on tricks, external aids, or assisted installations.
This means that, from the moment you boot the ISO, You can navigate the installer using voice guidance.Configure your system and complete the process without having to "guess" where you're clicking. This isn't just a cosmetic addition: it opens up CachyOS to users who, until now, had a much more complicated experience than in other distributions that had paid attention to this aspect.
This approach fits with a trend that is becoming more visible in the GNU/Linux world: It's not enough to be fast or pretty; the system has to be usable by the largest possible number of people.CachyOS, which has always been marketed as an extreme performance distro, is now also starting to step up its game in inclusion.
mkinitcpio, systemd and Bcachefs: a smarter boot, but with a cool head
Another key element of the launch lies in the starting system. The team has decided activate the “systemd” hook of mkinitcpio in those configurations where it makes senseThis allows for better integration of the initial system startup with the systemd stack, which usually results in more consistent management of services and mount points from the outset.
However, they haven't gone crazy: If the user chooses ZFS or Bcachefs as the root filesystem, the systemd hook is automatically disabled.because these technologies are not yet compatible with that hook. This prevents a modern configuration from resulting in a system that fails to boot correctly.
In parallel, when you select Bcachefs as the filesystem, the installer now It automatically installs the bcachefs-dkms package, replacing the generic kernel module with one maintained via DKMS.This improves integration with custom kernel versions (something very typical in CachyOS) and provides more stability for those who want to use Bcachefs in production.
The road to a new login manager: Plasma Login Manager and Cosmic Greeter
On the desktop front, the team is preparing the ground to change how users log into the system. The installer already Includes support for Plasma Login Manager and Cosmic Greeter, two modern solutions designed to better integrate with their respective graphical environments.
The developers' idea is that, In the future, Plasma Login Manager will replace SDDM as the login screen on-premises with KDE Plasma.However, this transition is currently on hold because a solid integration with KDE Settings is still lacking, especially regarding graphics options and the behavior of the display manager.
Where the leap has already been made is in the COSMIC desktop: Installations that use COSMIC will now use Cosmic Greeter as the default login managerThis provides a much more coherent experience, without having to mix a desktop as distinct as COSMIC with a generic access manager that doesn't fit visually or functionally.
Improved hardware detection and expanded support for GPUs and laptops
Another area where this ISO excels is in hardware recognition and configuration. The system now It automatically installs intel-media-sdk and vpl-gpu-rt on those Intel GPUs that support it., improving the experience in hardware-accelerated video tasks and encoding/decoding.
Additionally, CachyOS NVIDIA is definitively abandoning the proprietary NVIDIA 390xx driver, designed for older Fermi GPUs.Instead, these cards will use the open-source Nouveau driver with the NvBoost variant, which offers improved performance within the limitations of this older hardware. This move aligns with what's already being seen in other distributions: support for very old drivers is being phased out in favor of open-source solutions that are still actively supported.
In the realm of portable devices, the ISO adds specific support for the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X, two machines that have become quite popular for handheld gaming. This involves kernel, driver, and configuration adjustments to make booting the ISO on these devices much more straightforward, without having to manually troubleshoot drivers.
There is also an important detail within the hardware settings: The USB Ethernet interface of the T2 chip is disabled in the chwd tool, avoiding problems with certain network configurations on equipment that uses that hardware.
CachyOS-Hello and cachyos-settings: small tweaks that make everyday life easier
The welcome app, CachyOS-Hello, is also getting some love. From now on, The “Install applications” button directly opens the project's official PackageInstaller.Instead of using a proprietary internal installer, this unifies the software management experience and avoids duplicating tools that perform virtually the same function.
In addition, it has been added a command-line interface (CLI) to handle the main functions of the GUIThis is especially useful for advanced users, automation scripts, or remote installations where we may not have a graphical environment available, but we still want to replicate the same options offered by the visual interface.
Several details have also been corrected in the ISO version detection and verificationso that CachyOS-Hello correctly recognizes which image the system was installed from and can display relevant warnings or information as appropriate.
In the cachyos-settings package, one change that might go unnoticed but is interesting in terms of performance is that Recompression of incomprehensible pages in ZRAM has been disabled.After internal testing, they saw that this behavior did not bring real improvements and could introduce unnecessary overload in specific situations, so a more pragmatic approach has been chosen.
Proton-CachyOS: more control over DXVK, shader cache, and Wayland
For gamers, this version of CachyOS is especially well-suited. Proton-CachyOS, the Proton variant adapted by the distro, It now allows you to enable dxvk-gplasync as an alternative implementation of DXVKThis can be achieved simply by setting the environment variable PROTON_DXVK_GPLASYNC=1. This opens the door to testing performance improvements and stuttering reduction in certain titles, always at the user's own risk.
On the other hand, AMD's Anti-Lag layer is automatically disabled when using PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADEThis is because stability issues have been detected when both technologies are combined. Therefore, the priority is to ensure stable gaming sessions, even if this means sacrificing some latency reduction features.
The behavior of the shader cache per gameThis involves increasing limits and adjusting how that data is managed, especially with NVIDIA GPU users in mind. Thanks to this, the likelihood of cache overflows is reduced, and the frequency with which shaders need to be recompiled decreases, resulting in fewer stutters while gaming.
Regarding integration with Wayland, Proton-CachyOS It incorporates a good number of fixes for fullscreen, dead key handling, DPI behavior, and video output.In addition to improvements to the winewayland.drv component, all of this makes playing games under Wayland, something increasingly common in modern environments like KDE Plasma or GNOME, less problematic.
What's more, Updates for scaling technologies such as FSR3 and XeSS are included.so that those who use dynamic resolutions or want to squeeze out extra FPS have the latest improvements in these image reconstruction systems at their disposal.
Limine, btrfs-overlayfs and Calamares: corrections that prevent scares
In the bug fixes section, there are several important items related to startup and installation. To begin, A bug affecting the installation of the Limine boot manager on systems with faulty UEFI implementations has been fixed.where the entries weren't being recorded correctly in the firmware. With the fix, Limine is now behaving as it should, even on somewhat temperamental motherboards.
Furthermore, the system now uses the systemd-based variant of the btrfs-overlayfs hook, improving compatibility with the mkinitcpio systemd hook mentioned earlier. This combination avoids conflicts on systems using Btrfs with overlay layers and benefiting from systemd-managed booting.
The Calamares installer also receives a fine-tuning: The “attr2” option is removed from the XFS mount configurationFollowing the current recommendations of the XFS project itself, which considers that option obsolete or unnecessary in modern configurations.
Linux 6.12.58, KDE Plasma 6.5.3 and up-to-date KDE stack
Under the hood, this CachyOS ISO relies on the Linux kernel 6.12.58 Long Term Support (LTS)A solid foundation designed to offer stability while also being compatible with current hardware. For a distro focused on performance and gaming, having a recent kernel with ongoing maintenance is key.
In the live session and as the main desktop, CachyOS mounts KDE Plasma 6.5.3, accompanied by KDE Frameworks 6.20 and the KDE Gear 25.08.3 suiteThis means access to the latest Plasma 6 improvements, including performance enhancements, interface refinements, Wayland integration, and KDE ecosystem features.
This approach aligns with their overall philosophy: to offer a modern, lightweight and highly configurable desktop, but always on a relatively fresh stackwithout falling into the stagnation of overly old versions.
Steam-native-runtime, manual changes, and how to update if you already use CachyOS
For those who already have CachyOS installed, there's an important change related to Steam. The team announces that The “steam-native-runtime” runtime is deprecated and it is recommended to migrate to the official runtime included with the Steam package.Following the same path as Arch Linux, which has been withdrawing support for the old native runtime.
The official guide proposes a very simple process: Update the system with `sudo pacman -Syu` and uninstall the `steam-native-runtime` package.From then on, Steam will automatically use the standard environment provided by Valve, which is the one that receives active support.
Aside from that adjustment, To stay up to date, simply run the classic package update command.Those who don't want to complicate things can do the same using Plasma Discover or other equivalent graphics tools.
CachyOS on the map of high-performance distros
At the consumer level, The KDE environment of CachyOS typically uses around 800 MB – 1 GB of RAM at idleThese are very competitive figures for such a complete desktop environment. Comparative benchmarks against "pure" Arch show gains of 5-15% under certain workloads, something that is especially noticeable when compiling code or working on large projects.
Compared to alternatives like Garuda or EndeavorOS, CachyOS sacrifices some "visual sparkle" and pre-installed software in exchange for getting straight to the point in performance.However, it remains a distro that demands a bit more experience than more user-friendly options like Manjaro, so newcomers may need time to get used to its philosophy.
Its main advantages include Clearly superior performance, excellent support for modern hardware, a clean interface, and frequent but well-maintained updatesAmong the less favorable points are a certain level of technical knowledge required, less suitability for very old computers, and a more limited set of pre-installed packages than other "general-purpose" distributions.
With all these changes in the November ISO, CachyOS reinforces its position as One of the most serious options for those looking for a fast Arch-like distro, fine-tuned for gaming and heavy tasks, but now also more accessible, better integrated with systemd and more comfortable to use on recent hardware and portable devicesThe combination of improvements to the installer, Proton-CachyOS, GPU support, and the polished Plasma and COSMIC experience makes it a very solid candidate for those who want to take a leap in quality compared to other more conservative options.
