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CachyOS has been making the tech news recently, the subject of quite a number of positive reviews, and gaining a lot of user interest. It is currently at the top of the page view popularity charts on DistroWatch, indicating that people are at least looking for information about it.
It’s time for Full Circle to dive in and see what the hoopla is all about!
Background
I should start off by saying that I did not find an official explanation of where the name “cachy” comes from, but my best information is that it is a colloquial term meaning “cool, catchy, trendy, or in” and probably derives from the French word “cachet”, meaning “a mark or quality, as of distinction, individuality, or authenticity. Great prestige or appeal. “OS” is, of course, just short for “operating system”.
CachyOS was started in 2022 by Peter Jung from Germany and the project website lists 12 guys who make up the CachyOS development team.
Based on Arch Linux, CachyOS uses Arch’s rolling release model. This means that there is no regular schedule of releases, just an installer with updates every month or so to add recent changes. You install CachyOS once and then get regular updates forever which include patches and fixes as well as new application versions and features. Arch is famous for always providing the latest “bleeding edge” application versions. This is different from most other Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, where there are distinct releases and then bug fixes and updates to those releases but, other than updated web browsers, you mostly get to keep the same application versions within a given release.
The rolling release model is advantageous because you never have to install a new release version and you always have the latest application versions. On the downside, this also means that new applications and features may not be as fully tested, and that older hardware may run out of support as new kernels are pushed out.
The official website lays out the project’s goals: “CachyOS is designed to deliver lightning-fast speeds and stability, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable computing experience every time you use it. Whether you're a seasoned Linux user or just starting out, CachyOS is the ideal choice for those looking for a powerful, customizable and blazingly fast operating system.”
CachyOS is more than just re-branded Arch though; it has many changes and optimizations, falling under four general areas:
Optimized Packages: CachyOS compiles packages with the x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4 and Zen4 instruction set, plus Linear Tape-Open (LTO) for higher performance. The core packages also get Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) or Binary Optimization and Layout Tool (BOLT) optimization.
Desktop choices: The default live session desktop is KDE Plasma 6, but there are many other choices at installation for desktop environments, Wayland compositors or X11 window managers. These include KDE Plasma, GNOME, XFCE, i3, Wayfire, Niri, Openbox, Cinnamon, COSMIC, UKUI, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Budgie, Qtile, Hyprland, bspwm, and Sway. There is also a choice of boot managers (systemd-boot, rEFInd, GRUB, and Limine), with systemd-boot as default, and a choice of file systems (XFS, BTRFS, ext4, ZFS, F2FS (Flash-Friendly File System), and BcacheFS), with BTRFS as the default.
Installation
There is a choice of two installers, a user-friendly graphical version based on Calamares, and a command-line option.
Robust kernel support: CachyOS utilizes a Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer (BORE) Scheduler. This is designed to improve responsiveness for tasks with quick user input, particularly under heavy CPU loads, such as gaming. BORE enhances existing Linux schedulers by prioritizing tasks based on their “burstiness”, which helps reduce lag during multitasking. CachyOS has many scheduler options including EEVDF, sched-ext, ECHO, and RT. All the Linux kernels used are compiled with optimized x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4, Zen4 instructions and LTO, to be optimized for individual CPUs and hardware.
So, overall, there are many optimizations and lots of choices. Much of CachyOS's improvements are intended to make it a better gaming platform, although it works just as well for general desktop use. For gaming, it has a button in the CachyOS Hello greeter to “Install gaming packages”, which will install Steam, Lutris, and the Heroic Games Launcher. Between them, these platforms will run a lot of games and, depending on your hardware, the kernel tuning will mean they should run quickly.
Getting CachyOS
CachyOS comes in two versions, one for desktop and another for handheld gaming devices. I downloaded the August update, CachyOS 2025.08.25 Desktop Edition as a BitTorrent from the official source, using Transmission. I carried out a command-line SHA256 sum check to ensure I had a good download.
The ISO file turned out to be relatively lightweight for these days. At 2.98 GB, it is less than half the size of Ubuntu 25.04 which is 6.28 GB. There are some good reasons for this, including the number of applications and customization options included, described below.
As far as installation goes, the website warns, “it is not recommended to install CachyOS on a virtual machine. VMs can have issues with incorrect configuration or can be broken entirely. It is recommended to install CachyOS on bare metal.”
The ISO file also supports a KDE Plasma live session, enabling you to try it out without installing it on your hard drive.
Installing
I dropped the ISO file onto a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.1.05 and booted it up to a live session for testing. Like Arch Linux, CachyOS is officially supported by Ventoy, and it booted up without any issues.
System requirements
The listed minimum system requirements are: 3 GB RAM 30 GB of Storage Space (HDD/SSD) A stable internet connection
and the recommended specs are:
8 GB RAM 50 GB of storage space (SSD/NVMe) x86-64-v3 capable CPU 50 Mbps or better internet speed NVIDIA GPU (900+ - e.g: GTX 950), AMD +GCN 1.0 (e.g: AMD R7 240) or Intel (Integrated HD Graphics series or higher. Arc Series)
So, it can be seen that Cachy is not intended for old or lower spec hardware.
Trying out CachyOS
Booting up CachyOS as a live session gives the latest KDE Plasma 6.44 desktop. The other listed desktops and window managers can be chosen only when doing a full installation.
This is a mostly stock Plasma desktop, with some Cachy-specific additions like the CachyOS Hello greeter to get you started. The live session provides a bit of an abbreviated experience and omits some tools like the graphical CachyOS Package Installer and CachyOS Kernel Manager.
New
This August 2025 version, CachyOS 2025.08.25, brought a long list of new things over the previous July download. Some of the highlights are the introduction of the linux-cachyos-lts LTS Linux kernel fallback as a hedge against stability issues, the ISO now uses the LTS kernel instead of the latest stable kernel, and this update adds the Niri window manager as a desktop option. Choosing the combination of the GRUB bootloader with BTRFS as the filesystem now automatically enables bootable snapshots. S0ix sleep is now supported on NVIDIA hardware. Cachy-Update, a fork of arch-update, is now available in the CachyOS repository. This provides a system tray indicator to tell users about available updates from both the official Cachy repository and the Arch User Repository. There are also several improvements to the Limine bootloader and the Launch Installer button, plus many more fixes and patches included.
CachyOS now has a new packages website, packages.cachyos.org, which is similar to Ubuntu's Launchpad and gives the rundown on each package available in the repositories.
Settings
The KDE Plasma desktop is well-known for its wide range of user customization choices. For example, Kubuntu, which also uses the KDE Plasma desktop, comes with a veritable blizzard of included user options, but CachyOS has fewer choices which is one way to save space on the ISO download.
CachyOS's installed customization options include: three global themes (Breeze, Breeze Dark, and Breeze Twilight), two icon sets (Breeze, Breeze Dark), three Plasma styles (Breeze, Breeze Dark, and Breeze Light), two quick settings (Breeze, Breeze Dark), two splash screen options (Breeze and none), two system soundscapes (Ocean and FreeDesktop), one wallpaper (Coast by Krystian Zajdel, which has automatic light and dark modes), two window decorations (Breeze and Plastik), three application styles (Breeze, Fusion, and MS Windows 9x), and four cursor styles (Breeze light, Breeze Dark, Capitaine, and Capitaine white).
As always, the KDE Plasma desktop's customization options are all arranged in a single, organized place and each one allows downloading many more options than are provided by default.
The included Linux kernel is version 6.12.43, and the initialization system is Systemd 257.8. That is one area where there is no user choice: Arch uses systemd and so does CachyOS. Systemd haters should choose a different distro.
Applications
Some of the applications included with CachyOS KDE 2025.08.25 are: Alacritty 0.15.1 terminal emulator Dolphin 25.08.0 file manager Firefox 142.0 web browser Gparted 1.7.0 partition manager Kate 25.08.0 text editor KCalc 25.08.0 calculator KDE Partition Manager partition manager Konsole 25.08.0 terminal emulator KWrite 25.08.0 text editor Systemd 257.8 init system Vim 9.1.1623 text editor
The first thing noticeable about the provided suite of applications is that it is very minimal, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This approach helps keep the ISO file down to a smaller download size so users can just add what they need and do not have to remove a lot of what they don't need. It does also mean that CachyOS is not really ready to get to work right out-of-the-box, though, either for gaming or general desktop use. Some application installing and configuring is required.
The second notable thing is that, even though the list of applications included is short, there is an odd amount of duplication here. There are three text editors, two terminal emulators and two partition managers so some cleanup may be needed after installation.
Any of the 22,981 packages in the Cachy repository can be installed or removed either using the pacman package manager via the command-line or using the graphical CachyOS Package Installer.
Conclusions
It is not hard to see why CachyOS is getting quite a lot of attention across the Linux world, as there really is a lot to like here. It combines the best of Arch Linux's cutting edge rolling release model with some useful optimizations, plus a mountain of choices in desktops, window managers, file and boot systems (although not init systems).
Even though Cachy is aimed at both experienced and new Linux users, I think most beginners are going to need a bit of experienced help with installation due to the myriad of choices presented. This is not Ubuntu, where installation is very straightforward due to few choices. Once installed though, I think most beginners will do fine with CachyOS.
One thing about rolling release Linux distributions is that they can morph over time. So far, CachyOS has been mostly growing by adding more desktop and window manager options. We’ll see when it stabilizes and keep an eye on how it does, including whether its popularity continues to grow.
External links
Official website: https://cachyos.org/