Stable? Good? Bad? Annoying? Is it beginner friendly? Should I try KDE or Gnome?
I’ve only used Mint and SteamOS and from what I understand KDE should be similar to SteamOS Desktop mode because that is KDE based, right?
I don’t plan to distro hop any time soon, but I’m just curious if I ever get a new laptop I might try it to take advantage of it supposedly being descent at performance optimisation
Do not use arch its a cia psyop to get you to use a bad distro and get annoyed at linux
Use bazzite or something, its basically better steamos and can run on the steamdeck
After using bazzite for a year I’m not going back to traditional distros. It’s been great. Updates breaking your linux install don’t have to be a thing anymore!
I use CachyOS. I’m using it with KDE Plasma. So far it’s been good and stable. I’m using the built-in scripts used for gaming as I came from Bazzite. I found I wanted much more control than Bazzite would give but I was on Bazzite to check out the SteamOS console feature. I could have gone back to Debian or just vanilla Fedora but I wanted to get familiar with an Arch-based system instead. Arch is now easier to use these days thanks to scripts and apps like Shelly. Not that I can’t use pacman in the terminal, of course.
The main thing to remember about Arch based systems is that they use rolling updates, which can be annoying but the scripts make updating easy. Oh, and telling people that you use Arch btw. That’s the other thing to remember.
Here are my specs:
OS: CachyOS x86 64 Kernel: Linux 7.2.2-1-cachyos Packages: 14 (flatpak), 1484 (pacman) Shell: bash 5.3.15 Display (CR3200WM): 2560x1440 @ 1.5X in 31", 165 Hz [Externat] Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma 6.7.4 Terminal: konsole 26.8.0 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (12) @ 4.65 GHz GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT [Discrete] Memory: 31.26 GiB Disk (/): 664.43 GiB / 1.81 TiB (26%) - btrfsOooo I’m about to go a little off topic but your specs sound nice
Thank you. It’s all AMD because I wanted to try SteamOS from Valve and (at the time) that OS ran better if you used all AMD. Plus it was cheaper for me.
Steam Deck mode was great but I found I use my computer for more than gaming. Thus the switch to Bazzite and then CachyOS.
Did you find Catchy was similar to SteamOS Desktop mode? They’re both KDE, right?
I did find that both were similar but that’s mostly because I config’d for that. I made sure CachyOS was using KDE Plasma and a Wayland-based window manager, like SteamOS does.
Catchy is a decent OS, their wiki is pretty comprehensive and Catchy forums are pretty friendly compared to some others if you have questions.
it’s good, no problems. i like arch but i kinda fell out of the tinkering interest at some point so it’s nice to have a Just Works option with KDE. the discord and website seem good. it’s pretty popular now which helps support availability
+1 for KDE. Haven’t used Cachy so can’t say anything there but I do use arch and it is good, which Cachy is based on.
I just switched to Cachy, it’s fine. (Glowing review) I used Ubuntu as my primary OS for the last 15 years after switching from Fedora. This is better.
I’m still having issues configuring my Plex server, but only because I don’t understand Docker.
KDE Plasma is very easy to understand if you’re coming from Windows or Mac OS, GNOME is probably a better choice for a laptop or 2-in-1.
Things I haven’t tried yet: racing wheel, HOTAS, VR headset.
My Moza race wheel and pedals works great in BeamNG on Cachyos
I have a Logitech G27 wheel which seems to be supported as far as I can tell from the internet. I’d just need to dig it out of the closet and try it if I get in the mood for it.
My HOTAS is a Saitek x52 Pro, which also seems to be supported.
If you want an easy to configure arch-based distro, then CachyOS is the go-to at the moment.
The performance tweaks claims are a little overblown. Generally the best advice is to use the defaults kernel maintainers recommend. I have not seen any benchmarks where there has been much difference, if any, between distros on the same kernel. Sometimes the Cachy kernel performs worse, sometimes a little better.
I like the Open Gaming Collective approach because they are trying to upstream all the various fixes people have to do for unsupported hardware, and trying to get hardware manufacturers to help out and fix their hardware on linux, rather than making each distro patch stuff in. CachyOS didn’t want to be a part of it for whatever reason. Probably not a big deal, but it rubs me the wrong way.
I’ve been on the CachyOS bandwagon for over 12 months now. I’m using KDE plasma as it’s a lot more familiar to me. Haven’t had any major issues. Games run well and the OS just works well out of the box
It’s pretty good. Our household mains it on several computers.
It uses fish as its login shell which makes people screech, so you can change that if you want, use bash. Other than that it’s pretty good? Once or twice I’ve seen their
linux-cachyosandlinux-cachyos-ltskernels pushed in a state where they wouldn’t boot, so it pays to use Cachy’s kernel manager to download the standardlinuxandlinux-ltskernels as a backup, which is not difficult.Other than that it performs well, has a variety of (unthemed, granted) desktops, can be faster for games by a little bit. One thing to note is that it comes with Shelly, a GUI for accessing the Arch User Repository by default. This is dicey because AUR packages are all just user submitted scripts, so always check the pkgbuild first in case an old package is hijacked and tries to download js shit.
It’s probably better than Endeavour, because it comes with much more useful stuff and doesn’t use fuckin dracut in place of mkinitcpio. Most likely the best prepackaged Arch?
The forum is also pretty friendly.
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
One thing to note is that it comes with Shelly, a GUI for accessing the Arch User Repository by default. This is dicey because AUR packages are all just user submitted scripts, so always check the pkgbuild first in case an old package is hijacked and tries to download js shit.
Sorry to be nitpicky but that isn’t exactly true for Shelly. Yes, out of the box, AUR is enabled by default in Shelly GUI but this can be turned off:
Another thing is that Shelly is not just for AUR. It handles AUR, official Arch repo packages, Flatpaks/Flathub, and even AppImages. Shelly also has security features like PKGBUILD verification. For more info check out this page: https://wiki.cachyos.org/configuration/post_install_setup/#updating-the-system
One other thing is, Cachy-Hello - the first app you’re introduced to. Within it, the Install Apps link directs users to the CachyOS Package Installer, like they want you to use that by default. I could have saved time and not installed Bazaar for Flatpaks if I had known about Shelly beforehand.
Yes, out of the box, AUR is enabled by default
Yeah, like I said. I also don’t like flatpak fwiw. I just think users should be warned more about the AUR than Cachy does, given the recent shitstorms with compromised aur packages.
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
I also don’t like flatpak fwiw.
I can dig that. I know Snap and Flathub turn some people off. I only use flatpaks when I can’t find an app in the official repo or as an appimage. Or when an official repo version app acts ‘squirrely’ on my system for some reason, but the flatpak version plays nice. Go figure.
You are right to warn about the AUR. I won’t mess with that shit either.
I used to be the “average ‘install whatever from the aur’ fan” but as of recent I have become the “average ‘only install from official repos or build it from source’ enjoyer”. Feels pretty good honestly.
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
What’s wrong with flatpaks again?
What’s wrong
Snaps were the original version. The main hate is because the Snap system is proprietary to Canonical and Ubuntu. Snaps were also laggy - very slow and took up a lot of resources when initially ran.
When Flatpaks were introduced, they were meant to run on all distros and not just Ubuntu, but by then, the distaste for anything Snap-like was set in.
At least, that’s how I’m remembering it.
they are large because they package all dependencies and can cause headaches with permissions stuff due to sandboxing
Thank you so much!
You’re welcome!
It uses fish as its login shell which makes people screech, so you can change that if you want, use bash. Other than that it’s pretty good?
I’m still waiting on a distro to use xonsh as the login shell.
(Bit of a joke, but xonsh is actually really fun to use if you like Python and Bash. Honestly great as a glue shell if you use a lot of Python scripts. Plus the webui for config is actually pretty slick.)
All these words are scaring me I have next to no programming knowledge
I’d stich with your distro’s shell then lol. Xonsh is really just a power user shell if you are writing a lot of Python scripts that you call from the command line.
If your default shell is fish, then just take note and remember that some bash stuff doesn’t work the same in fish so copy/pasting commands online (from a place other than your distro docs/forums) might take some finagling.
🏏🐟🐚
Get it?
I…
I’m stupid
bash, fish, xonsh
Starting with pictures lol
I mean, you can also just edit the configs. The webui is just a basic Python webserver that let’s you preview the changes without committing them.
You have my attention
Download it and play around with it as a secondary shell. I believe it’s technically posix compliant? Or at least partially compliant.
I wouldn’t use it as a login, but kinda like how you’d use nu if you’re dealing with a bunch of structured data.
I’ve been using it for a year with no issues. It just works for me, though as ashinadash stated, it’s released a couple updates that have caused failure to boot (I just have not personally been affected). I’m like a moderately techy person, not sure I’d hand it off to someone who isn’t a little comfortable fiddling with the console. KDE has been great for me 😊
Only thing that hasn’t worked is my racing wheel, but that might just be a skill issue lol.
Hmmm yeah I’ve been spoiled by Mint and SteamOS being easy to update/configure/etc, I might have to learn how to use the terminal with a bit more confidence (konsole? /console?)
DE is just personal preference, you can’t really go that wrong with any of the popular ones plus you can easily change it later without a reinstall.
If you like the look and feel of mint then you can just use cinnamon on cachy.
I’d recommend KDE to most people.
I’m using cachy on my daily driver/gaming rig. Personally I like to use debian LTS on my other devices because I use them intermittently and don’t want to worry about keeping them up to date.
Yeah, it’s good. I like it for laptops with niri + noctalia shell, which is now an option on initial install. That might not be your cup of tea if you’re used to KDE, but I love the touchpad gestures and keyboard shortcuts. Retains some of the intuitive navigation I love about GNOME but is much more power-user oriented.
As far as arch-based distros go it’s more beginner-friendly than most, but probably not as friendly as Mint/SteamOS. Things like, do I use pacman, AUR, flatpak? Depends on the package. Also it’s just the single rolling release, which updates very frequently. If you’re used to updating packages manually, expect to be sidetracked by system updates.
I’m about to embarrass myself, I’ve been using mint for like 2 years now I should know this by now but…
Updating packages manually is the Sudo apt update command, right?
And that updates any of the OS updates too and not just third party packages? 😅
Well yeah. Say you want to install a particular package but haven’t updated for awhile, maybe now your package definitions are outdated so you need to update them before pacman will correctly point you to the package you want. But now since you updated the definitions, your system wants you to update about 200 other packages. And one of them is an updated kernel, so it wants you to reboot to apply it. Essentially, staying on the cutting edge has associated maintenance you might not be used to.
Right! I guess I understand a little. I wonder if there is somewhere I can learn more about this kind of thing without having to bother people with questions all the time
Wait, what is sudo apt upgrade and how is that different from sudo apt update!? What is a kernel, can I eat it?!
apt updatemake a todo list of what needs to be updatedapt upgradeexecute that todo listdon’t worry about bothering people, linux dorks love answering questions. Why do you think every linux thread han 1000 replies
Apt keeps lists of packages available. This is pretty smart, as it means stuff like
apt installdoesn’t need to go out onto the internet and ask what packages are available every time you want to do something. But these lists need to be kept up-to-date, so:apt updatewhich will fetch these lists and store them locally.apt upgradewill then use the lists, and a list of installed packages I presume, to figure out if there is anything that can be upgraded, and then fetch and install any new/upgraded packages.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
Thank you! That clears things up nicelyAnd this is true on all “traditional” Linux distributions. On arch the commands you run are different but the underlying principle is the same. The equivalent of
apt updateispacman -Sy, andapt upgradeispacman -Su. And these two can be combined topacman -Syu,[1] in fact arch recommends always doing a system upgrade when doing a list update.Also I use KDE, it just works.
1: Or
-Suythe order is not important
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
If you’ve seen this classic copypasta it is actually an accurate explaination.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX
aptis used by debian based distros.Arch based distros generally use
pacmanfor distro packages.“Third party” is a bit too vague a term for linux. The distro distributes packages that are made by other parties (“upstream”) some of which are part of the operating system (the OS is modular and made up of packages from many sources) and some of which are applications either preinstalled or that you have installed using the distro’s package manager. The distro’s job is to make all of these packages easy to get and work together nice.
You can also install packages that are not distributed by your distro. On debian systems like mint this in usually done by adding another source repository (ppa) to
apt. Also using flatpacks, appimages or building yourself.On arch generally people use the AUR (Arch user repository). This requires a separate package manager like
yay. Because packages on the aur can be uploaded by anyone you have to be careful about malware.Arch has frequent updates, cachy less so but still much more frequent than mint. The system can break if you don’t update often enough (by break I mean it won’t be able to update or install new packages and require a fresh os reinstall to fix).
They got their start by offering optimized packages for higher end CPUs as a replacement for Arch’s generic packages; it’s still weird to me that they became their whole distribution. Packages made for higher end CPUs have variable improvements but in my experience it isn’t all that impressive.
They’re a lot less offensive to use than Manjaro or EndeavorOS (or shudder “omarchy”) who provide very little outside of “make installing arch easier” when that wasn’t difficult in the first place nor desirable to hide all that complexity. I don’t like their website though, smells of slop.
It’s basically just Arch Linux and if you like DIY then it’d be a good fit, otherwise, stick with what works or use Arch itself and cut out the middle man.
You HAVE to use something KDE-based.
yeah KDE basically killed my tinkering interest cause it just works so well lol. wildly polished software it’s miles ahead of any other traditional GUI WM and bundles great software too
W-why
KDE is simple by default but includes many useful advanced features for when I need them.
Gnome on the other hand is over-simplified, lacking the useful features entirely.
As an example, my favourite KDE feature is that I can right click a zip file and “extract here and delete archive”. If there are multiple files in the zip, it makes sure it creates a folder to put them in, but never makes more layers of folders than necessary. Lots of little things like that really add up.
I moved my handheld from Bazzite to Cachy to SteamOS. Bazzite was quite slow, where Cachy felt a bit unstable. I gather that the desktop edition is much more mature so might be better?
