Plain Arch is great, but CachyOS makes all the right improvements<\/b>
\nSince switching to Linux just a few months ago, I’ve settled on Arch Linux paired with KDE Plasma as my distro of choice for most of that time. But I’ve just been using plain Arch Linux, which, while very versatile and lightweight, isn’t the most user-friendly when it comes to getting started.
Enter CachyOS, an Arch Linux-based distro that addresses that very issue, while also providing a few other improvements. I recently got to go hands-on with CachyOS and discovered just how great it can be, especially for someone who may have heard great things about Arch but is worried it may expect too much of them.
Installing is much easier<\/p>\n

Choose your own path<\/p>\n

Right off the bat, the main benefit of CachyOS is that it has a proper installer that’s far more user-friendly than what Arch offers by default. It does offer a command-line install option, but by default, you get a nice UI (based on KDE Plasma) that guides you through the installation process.
While a standard Arch Linux install can be made much easier with the archinstall command, there are still a lot of pages with a lot of condensed information, which can make it hard to find your way through without someone to guide you for the first time. I typically just focus on the essentials to make things work, and then leave any additional setup for when I get to the desktop environment. Not to mention, just launching archinstall requires an internet connection, which you need to set up before you even get to the more friendly UI.
The CachyOS installer makes this so much better, with a guided installation that takes you through the most important steps, such as choosing your bootloader, desktop environment, and preinstalled packages, the last of which is particularly notable. Again, the typical Arch installer does have this option, but it’s not very inviting to go out of your way to navigate that UI manually, so it was nice to be able to easily remove Firefox from the base install. You can also do things like set your timezone and configure your partitions this way.
One thing I also appreciated is that I was able to choose the new COSMIC desktop environment from the get-go. It’s been a week or two since I last set up Arch, but when I did, COSMIC had just been released in beta and wasn’t available from archinstall. Here it was available as an option, so that was a nice bonus.
Optimized for performance<\/p>\n

Compiled for major architectures<\/p>\n

Despite being based on Arch, CachyOS actually has its own kernel branch, and the team prides itself on optimizing for performance across all major architectures. It uses the BORE scheduler and kernels are compiled for different variations of x86-64 and Zen 4 instruction sets, optimizing performance for specific hardware. What’s more, additional packages are also compiled and optimized for specific instruction sets, with specific cachyOS repositories available from the get-go and even a GitHub repository of PKGBUILD files that are also optimized for specific hardware. CachyOS is optimized as much as possible for the best performance and responsiveness.
To the extent that I could test, the experience on CachyOS was very fast and smooth, even running the beta version of the COSMIC desktop environment. For a quick comparison, I ran Geekbench 6 (the Flatpak version) on this PC and the scores were 3,148 for single-core and 14,913 for multi-core. Compared to my earlier tests on Ubuntu, you see a nice uplift from 3,062 and 14,860 for single-core and multi-core, respectively. That’s a fairly significant bump in single-core performance, considering it’s the same exact hardware. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I ran those tests in Ubuntu, so other factors could be at play, but I just wanted to provide a point of reference.
At the end of the day, more optimized packages should just provide snappier performance across the board, which can only be a good thing.
It includes a package installer<\/p>\n

Who even needs Flatpak?<\/p>\n

I’ve been a big proponent of adding Flatpak to your Linux install to make things easier on yourself, and while I still agree with that, CachyOS also comes with a package installer of its own that makes it easier to install your typical Linux packages. Pretty much any package you would install with pacman can be found in the CachyOS package installer, and the GUI makes it very easy to find and select the packages you want to install.
I know many Linux users will scoff at the idea of using this GUI instead of the terminal, but you always have that option anyway. More accessibility is never a bad thing, and this makes it easier for less experienced users to get set up. Plus, it’s nice to have a package installer that’s available regardless of what desktop environment you choose to set up. When I install Arch with KDE Plasma, I do get the Discover store, but I still need to install Flatpak for it to actually work, so this is a bit easier to get going.
It can even be for handhelds<\/p>\n

Maximum performance for gaming<\/p>\n

On top of all the customization options you get in the desktop version of CachyOS, it even comes in a version dedicated to gaming handhelds, with explicit support for the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and Legion Go S, and the Steam Deck itself. In addition to the KDE Plasma-based desktop environment, it comes with a dedicated gaming mode similar to SteamOS, plus it includes gaming tools that can make things easier to get set up.
Outside of that, CachyOS also comes with a specially compiled version of Proton that benefits from specific optimizations for different instruction sets, helping improve gaming performance that much more. This can take some setup to make sure you’re using the right settings, but once everything is set up, gaming should be better than ever.
Why even use standard Arch?<\/p>\n

I love how light and customizable Arch Linux is, but when you get something like CachyOS that’s based on that lightweight package but includes a wide range of specific optimizations, it’s hard to say that’s not even better. The performance uplift alone is a big argument in favor of CachyOS, but for less experienced users, CachyOS has even more benefits since it’s so much easier to get started. This will probably be my go-to recommendation going forward for anyone looking to give Linux a shot.<\/p>\n