It's been wild to see the shifting popularity of Linux distros over the years.
It wasn't that long ago that the distros with the most momentum were Elementary OS, Solus, Pop_OS, and Manjaro.
This past year I've noticed a few distros that seemed to come out of nowhere with popularity including: Bazzite, Zorin OS, Omarchy, EndeavourOS, and the subject of this post/video: Cachy OS.
Cachy OS is based on Arch Linux, but unlike Manjaro it doesn't freeze it for points releases or make drastic changes that impact the update cycle.
Manajro provides 3 different .iso files for each of it's official desktop environments, and another 3 for it's community-supported desktop environments.
Cachy provides only 2 .iso images. One for desktops/PCs/servers, and the other for handheld-devices like the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, or Lenovo Legion GO.
The handheld .iso only supports KDE Plasma 6.
On the "main" .iso you get a Plasma 6 live installer to test things out, but also you get one of the most comprehensive graphical installers I've ever used.
Which lets you select options for:
Boot Loaders:
- GRUB2
- Limine
- Systemd_boot
- REfind
File Systems:
- BTRFS
- Ext4
- XFS
- ZFS
- BCache FS
- F2FS(Flash-Friendly File System)
Desktop Environments:
- KDE Plasma
- GNOME
- COSMIC
- XFCE:
- Hyprland
- Sway
- Niri
- i3
- Qtile
- Wayfire
- **Budgie **
- Cinnamon
- LXDE
- LXQt
- MATE
- Openbox
- bspwm
- UKUI
Cachy includes a handful of applications no matter which desktop:
Alacrity terminal emulator(pre-configured with customized FISH or ZSH shells)
BTRFS Assistant(if you installed on BTRFS)
Micro & VIM text editors
Btop++ terminal resource/system monitor
Octopi software manager for Arch & AUR.(Octopi was included on my install, but I'm told it has been replaced with Shelly)
And Cachy's Very OWN Software:
- Cachy Hello:
A welcome-app with all of Cachy's links to documentation.(Cachy's website includes an extensive wiki of tutorials and how-to's that are extremely useful)- It includes toggles for various Cachy performance features such as Profile-Sync Dameon, BPF-tune, Aninancy-CPP, Systemd Out-Of-Memory-Daemon.
- Cachy Software Manager: A curated list of packages by type, and comprehensive list of packages in Cachy's official Arch-repos.
- Gaming Packages in particular lets you pick from every Vulkan-driver imaginable. Graphics drivers for every chipset, integrated GPU, or graphics card that I didn't even know existed before seeing them listed here.
Cachy Kernel Manager: Lets you custom-build kernels, or switch between the various custom ones. Also gives you access to Sched-Ext custom scheduler extensions.
How Cachy Is Different from Arch:
Arch Linux builds their packages for maximum compatibility.
Where Arch is agnostic Cachy is specific.
Cachy clones and rebuilds the entire Arch Linux repository, but with performance-focused enhancements tailored to modern hardware.
This includes compiling more of the system using BOLT/PGO/LTO optimizations using Clang/LLVM Low Level Virtual Machine to build major components.
Cachy further specifies packages for x86_64-v2,v3,v4(Zen4) architectures to make better use of the latest instructions on modern Intel/AMD processor.
Cachy lets you switch between EEVDF, BORE, and BMQ schedulers.
EEVDF – general-purpose (default tuned scheduler)
BORE – optimized for responsiveness, desktop, and gaming
BMQ – alternative scheduler focused on simplicity and performance
And that's before letting you swap out Sched-Ext profiles that let you tune it even further.
There's also kernels built realtime, long-term support, hardened(security), and several more.
Cachy includes profiles/rules for Ananicy-CPP that optimize it for apps or games. Which includes Windows games that may have more than one necessary process. You can also write your own rules for games/apps.
CHWD or Cachy Hardware Detection automatically scans/determines available drivers/firmware.
And believe it or not, there's so many other things you'll learn by actually watching my video.