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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

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](https://wiki.cachyos.org/cachyos_basic/why_cachyos/), [here](https://wiki.cachyos.org/configuration/gaming/), and [here](https://wiki.cachyos.org/installation/installation_on_root/). 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](https://www.nyx.chaotic.cx/) 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](https://youtu.be/DsTlxRKkPyY?t=744)).

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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What a load of bull... To summarize the claim even more: I want to use Steam infrastructure, but I don't want to pay for it.

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I believe AI would not be problem for GOG Galaxy.

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Quoting: Pyrate

Will 2026 truly be the real year of Linux gaming on the desktop?

Between this, and Adobe Photoshop getting a Wine fix, Affinity Studio teasing Linux support, and the new Vulkan extension that will apparently fix the performance loss on Novidia..

Yeah, I'd say this is the year 😁.

We memed so much about for so many years that the Linux Gods (a.k.a. Gabe and Linus) are using their mystical power to pull it off in order to make us shut up about it for good.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: Curupira

a significantly reworked installer, which also now includes bootloader selection

I can vouch that CachyOS installer included a bootloader selection screen since I've first tried it (more than a year ago). Maybe even earlier. :)

I'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".

Yeah, it's weird. When I fist installed this, about 8 months back, it asks if you want Grub, SystemD-boot or a couple of others. So it's technically been there for a while. I wonder how it's changed that warrants that update message?

The bootloader selection was updated to offer summaries of the choices to better help people choose, but most importantly the default selection was shifted from systemd-boot to Limine. This means that bootable snapshot integration will be available to the people that don't know enough to select something other than the default. Prior to this, new users just going with systemd-boot were at a pretty big disadvantage to those who selected Limine or Grub.

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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.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: Curupira

a significantly reworked installer, which also now includes bootloader selection

I can vouch that CachyOS installer included a bootloader selection screen since I've first tried it (more than a year ago). Maybe even earlier. :)

I'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".

Yeah, it's weird. When I fist installed this, about 8 months back, it asks if you want Grub, SystemD-boot or a couple of others. So it's technically been there for a while. I wonder how it's changed that warrants that update message?

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Quoting: Curupira

a significantly reworked installer, which also now includes bootloader selection

I can vouch that CachyOS installer included a bootloader selection screen since I've first tried it (more than a year ago). Maybe even earlier. :)

I'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".

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Legal gears slowly grinding, huh? Two years to get to the point of "yeah, let's review this".

I wish this was a case against Amazon for Kindle Unlimited, instead of Valve for Steam game pricing, but there we go.

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a significantly reworked installer, which also now includes bootloader selection

I can vouch that CachyOS installer included a bootloader selection screen since I've first tried it (more than a year ago). Maybe even earlier. :)

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The UK continues to target consumers and make it bad for their own citizens... And all because of these "protect the children" fake organizations that clearly have a second agenda, and it is not about protecting the children. I wish these organizations would be sued for abusing the state of abused children for their own gain.

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If they are really taking into consideration Linux, at least one engineer with knowledge about Wine/Proton would also be necessary. Or they should consider closer cooperation with other known Wine engineers (for example GloriousEggroll or folks from The Dawn Winery, those who do custom Proton builds for gachas like Genshin).

Not all games work well and some still have some Linux specific bugs (for example Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood with a laggy cursor - recent Wine builds fixed it only partially).

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Wow, it's consistently had 800-1500 players every month for it's (considerable) shelf life!

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I 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.

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Quoting: PyrateAffinity Studio teasing Linux support

Could you please provide a link where they did so?

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Quoting: MinoscerebI guess it goes to show how seldom I actually play anything on EGS.

I was exactly the same, and it turns out that not having to deal with a shitty launcher does lead to wanting to play those free games. Give it a shot, you might end up like me, actually choosing to play those freebies because of the much much better UX.

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What I really like to see is a bit of back-end/library consolidation.

I saw Heroic made efforts to sync the savages to GOG (experimentally), which seems to be a missing feature of Minigalaxy https://github.com/sharkwouter/minigalaxy/issues/23

Idk, is it so much fun to reverseengineer a platform or such a hassle to use stuff from others?

Sry for my rant. I just don't want to watch another client for xyz suffocate in bugs, which tints "Linux as a bad place to game" .

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The game looks nice. But I hate other players. I mean, there will probably always be at least one that I hate. Just like the Ark: SE GOL server where I spend my 1 hour free time every few days in, only to start all over again because of that one person.

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Quoting: MinoscerebI'm curious where other people fall on this though. Have I missed something about Heroic?

Same. I don't get logic, why stubbornly not to include Steam games import to Heroic.

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Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: MinoscerebI like the look of Heroic, it's a lot better designed visually than Lutris and feels more user friendly, but since Lutris can run all the stores Heroic can, and at least for GoG has access to lots of useful scripts for things like mods or just actual playability, I don't see a use case for Heroic for myself. I'm curious where other people fall on this though. Have I missed something about Heroic?

Unless this was changed, Lutris installs EGS meaning you have to deal with that garbage game store. Heroic basically bypasses any store it integrates and just asks you to login to the services to serve the games you have purchased.

I hadn't considered that actually. That's definitely a point to Heroic. I guess it goes to show how seldom I actually play anything on EGS.

I used to have both installed, but worried I'd end up with multiple installs of games (out of lazyness and lack of attentin on my own part) and just didn't want to bother deciding on a case by base basis which one to use, but maybe I should give Heroic another shot just for EGS-integration.

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Quoting: ShadowXeldronThe rest of that looks fine... but doesn't AI actively reduce developer efficiency and code quality?

It depends heavily on how you use it and what for....
I guess majority of the market has no idea yet how and where to use it properly. That is because the technology itself is just not there yet; it cannot be used for 'anything' en masse; it makes sense for certain select tasks only...

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Will 2026 truly be the real year of Linux gaming on the desktop?

Between this, and Adobe Photoshop getting a Wine fix, Affinity Studio teasing Linux support, and the new Vulkan extension that will apparently fix the performance loss on Novidia..

Yeah, I'd say this is the year 😁.

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Quoting: MinoscerebI like the look of Heroic, it's a lot better designed visually than Lutris and feels more user friendly, but since Lutris can run all the stores Heroic can, and at least for GoG has access to lots of useful scripts for things like mods or just actual playability, I don't see a use case for Heroic for myself. I'm curious where other people fall on this though. Have I missed something about Heroic?

Unless this was changed, Lutris installs EGS meaning you have to deal with that garbage game store. Heroic basically bypasses any store it integrates and just asks you to login to the services to serve the games you have purchased.

My use case for Lutris over Heroic is for those game setup files I find laying on the ground after they fell off a truck full of game setup files. The customizability shines better there, even if both programs are capable of the same end results eventually.

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Hell yeah! This would get me to buy and play more of their games. Hopefully they follow through on this.

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Having both support for "Galaxy" and (preferably) some measure of: "if GOG end up making use of Wine / Proton", that would be the proverbial "Game Changer" for me.

Up until now, I've largely ignored GoG, aside from buying games for "ScummVM" and a few older titles for DosBOX. The reason for that, is that their commitment to Linux (compared to Valve) has seemed "half-assed" at best and almost non-existing at worst.

This change, if it's realized, could mean that I actually start using GoG for new/modern games. A legitimate alternative to Steam.

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Quoting: ShadowXeldronThe rest of that looks fine... but doesn't AI actively reduce developer efficiency and code quality?

That's what I thought too, and it's probably the case generally, but I got my mouth shut yesterday. One software architect at the company I work, created a new feature in a day that had been estimated in 8 or 9 months of work. It has been quite the buzz in the office. Now, I don't know if the original estimate was way off, but the "achievement" is still rather impressive.

Quoting: ShadowXeldronI'd be fine with going back to shopping with GOG if their official client actually comes to Linux as a native package with proper wineprefix handling for non-native games. Their lack of Linux support is what made me give up on them.

100% with you on this.

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I'm totally okay with a CLI tool like legendary

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The rest of that looks fine... but doesn't AI actively reduce developer efficiency and code quality?

I'd be fine with going back to shopping with GOG if their official client actually comes to Linux as a native package with proper wineprefix handling for non-native games. Their lack of Linux support is what made me give up on them.

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Fun story time!

Back when I worked at GOG (over 8 years ago) as their Linux gaming expert the company hired a highly qualified Linux engineer for the GOG Galaxy team. As far as I know the poor fellow never got to do anything Linux-related in his job. Still, he was a fun friend to talk Linux with.

There were a couple of us Linux gamers back then at GOG. Unfortunately not among the decision makers 🙂.

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about time I guess?

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