For anyone having issues installing (for me on ROG Ally with the handheld edition) I managed to work it out here: https://discuss.cachyos.org/t/cachyos-january-2026-release-changelog/21783/68 [External Link]

Preliminary opinion is that it is blazing fast. I know I'm coming from a jank NixOS with cobbled together Jovian (Game Mode) and nix-cachyos-kernel, but even compared to Bazzite it still feels very fast. I like a lot of the included or easily-installable gaming packages as well - `proton-cachyos-slr` offering a Proton that is managed by the package manager.

There are still a lot of things for me to go through. Their wiki do assume a decent level of familiarity with Linux though. See here [External Link], here [External Link], and here [External Link]. This really isn't a Manjaro, Garuda, or Endeavour style of "baby's first Arch-based install", it's more of "Okay, we assume you know the basics - here is what we offer and you may make a value judgement based on it." For the most part? It seems to offer some great stuff.

Quoting: scaineI suppose the performance thing is cool, but the bit of CachyOS I love is that it integrates snapper into grub seamlessly, so if you break your system (say, an aberrant Arch update), you just reboot into an earlier snapshot and you've learned your lesson. Takes all the pressure off the fact it's Arch. Or being an idiot like me and constantly experimenting with stuff and breaking things.

I'd like them to include ChaoticAUR by default, like Garuda does, but it's straightforward enough to add manually. If you haven't used ChaoticAUR before, it's a precompiled version of the AUR - very fast, because it acts like any other Arch source. No waiting around for AUR compiles.

My next challenge with CachyOS is integrating the boot with TPM, so I don't have to manually unlock my disks at startup. If that's successful, I don't think I'll be distro-hopping for a long, long time.

Yes, the installer is kinda ehh. Coming from Bazzite that sets everything up for you, I had chosen to just forgo encryption setup because I can't be arsed to manually set it up.

I liked Chaotic AUR, but it requires trusting someone else to build the AUR packages correctly and without any bad intention. I personally trust the team, but should a distro maintainer make that judgement for their users? Also, what happens if it gets abandoned a la their Chaotic Nyx [External Link] project?

And snapper function isn't unique to CachyOS - I think Manjaro already have it since 3 or more years ago (if you installed with btrfs filesystem) and before then I used Garuda with it as well. But yes, it should be standard in all Arch and Arch-based install IMO, saved my butt multiple times before (though there was nothing it could do if the issue was bootloader or you messed up a nofail fstab entry).

Quoting: Curupira

Quoting: Liam DaweI'm not too clued up on it, but it seems it was done differently before. Direct from their blog post "bootloader selection has been moved directly into the installer".

Oh yeah, the bootloader selection screen appeared before the installer. Now it makes sense, thanks.

In the previous version, it asks you which ones you want to choose BEFORE the Calamares installer starts (see Mutahar's video here [External Link]).

That's because for each of the different bootloader you want, it seems a different Calamares package is called. So there are four Calamares packages. I'd imagine that's a bit complicated and fragile (judging by the links in my link above, there has been a noted installation issues with mirrorlist and Calamares versions since October 2025).

And Limine seems interesting. I'd love it if they use it and offers an automated/simple encryption setup a la Bazzite and touchscreen support like rEFInd apparently does, while maintaining the current stated speed of it.

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That is actually very useful and I suspect will be a "killer feature" for some people.

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Quoting: SzkodnixI hope Umamusume series won't be enshittified too soon.

Brother, Umamusume IS the enshittification game.

I remember the time before Umamusume. When projects were allowed to make a decent profit, and player goodwill was the priority. A lot of free resources, rates were permissive, events weren't excessively monetized.

If you want to look at what post-Uma Cygames looks like, look at Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond. I play that game, and I would rather spend money on the physical Shadowverse Evolve TCG despite them costing more due to how greedy the monetization in SVWB is.

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A lot of it seems great. Hopefully, this does mean Steam moving to Wayland and 64bit this year to be possible. But even outside of that, there are some pain points like windowing, IME, and Bluetooth that this addresses - as well as touching up on the behaviour of things like ODBC and other Windows dependencies that was an issue for me when I once tried to run local official tax apps and MS365.

At the same time, I'm not going to expect this to magically fix everything. I've had too many times when I think "everything should be fixed now!" and then you still have a dozen different issues. But, I am hopeful that things are maturing even further in a year or two.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: fenglengshunWill the full podcast be uploaded to YouTube as well? I only watch/listen to YouTube podcasts.

As noted in the article yes, the full episode should be on YouTube next week.

Thanks! I didn't saw it since I was scanning around for a link to the full YouTube release, haha.

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Quoting: LoftySimilar to how Bazzite swapped out the software center without alerting the typical users of Bazzite to the new alternative. Sure there may have been a forum thread on it, in the their official discord too but a simple pop-up would have been appreciated by the type of ' new to linux user' who uses it rather than leaving them completely in the dark on how to install new software .. i mean its not 1995 anymore we don't tend to use CD's to install programs anymore.

Folks that use Bazzite as a gaming distro on their PC are probably not locked into the developmental nerd element of linux distro's .. i.e typical non techy gamers who want a 'gamer OS' who probably are moving away from windows, for whom Bazzite is primarily aimed at.

Are some distro's are more agenda driven than others ? I suppose each project has their own management team and their idealistic view of how their distro will operate. I tend to avoid those that stick to a more 'Apple like' philosophy, they tend to dislike constructive criticism and almost never backtrack on a bad idea.

Honestly, Bazaar isn't a bad idea. But the rushed implementation (while it has major issues) AND removal of the normal GUI app installer for the DEs just soured me on it. I reviewed the app on one of the ublue threads and I'll admit I'm more harsh on it because it is shoved in my mouth like that.

I will still recommend them for new users, but I'll always mention Nobara and CachyOS as well, while personally using NixOS. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth as I left Windows due to them forcing stuff down my throat - yes, Bazzite and ublue isn't disgusting like Microsoft and Windows, but I left Windows out of spite and principle of "let me embrace new things when I want to." It's pretty much the same thing here.

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Will the full podcast be uploaded to YouTube as well? I only watch/listen to YouTube podcasts.

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My main issue with Fedora is that, while the upgrade process is usually smooth, the same can't be said about their policy.

You are, of course, subject to the policy of the maintainer of your distro of choice, but with Fedora, they have a policy of marching to the beat of their own drums. They will adopt new technology before they're fully ready for many (sometimes it's not even ready for most of their users), or drop old technology before many are ready to migrate (with the worst example being how they almost dropped 32bit support before Steam for 64bit is ready - most subject don't get nearly the same backlash and no backtracks).

Personally, I think Nobara is the better middle-ground between normal Fedora, CachyOS (which is Arch-based and thus may require manual intervention sometimes), and Bazzite, to use on Desktop. GloriousEggroll having their hands on the pulse of Linux gaming, Red Hat, and ProtonGE makes me trust him better with maintainer policies.

I personally like full-blown CachyOS better, but I would put it as a second after Nobara - I outright think CachyOS is better, but that Arch-base carrying the "Arch manual intervention" caveat emptor makes it a rank down for recommendation for me.

Ofc, as can be seen from how I use Linux, I care a lot about what goes on in my machine. While I don't believe in Red Hat conspiracies, I have experienced the absolute annoyance when Fedora policy don't align with your preference, so that's why I prefer something less... Fedora, and really would rather people just use CachyOS, and maybe Nobara if they're wary of Arch, or Bazzite if they're completely new.

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Hm. Wonder if extest will need updating for when 64-bit Steam for Linux launches. It was an annoyance for me on NixOS as it throws errors due to ELFCLASS32 and LD_PRELOAD issue or something.

Though, for that matter, I do wonder how update rollout and dependency changes will be handled across the board.

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I already said it in the past - Mozilla would LOVE to be Google instead of just being unofficial Google subsidiary IF they had the chance.

People thought just because they're the non-Chromium alternative that they're noble, forgetting ALL the stuff they did or tried to do for the last ten years.

I never forgot nor forgive the Mr. Robot fiasco.

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