The release of CachyOS 260628, based on the Arch Linux package base, has been announced. It uses a continuous delivery model for updates and is popular among gamers. According to ProtonDB, CachyOS is the most popular Linux distribution used by gamers (with a share of 21.1%).
The distribution is notable for including optimizations to enhance performance and offering the ability to install various desktop environments. In addition to the basic KDE environment, available installations include GNOME, Xfce, i3WM, Wayfire, LXQT, OpenBox, Cinnamon, Cosmic, Niri, MangoWM, LXDE, Mate, Budgie, Qtile, Hyprland, and Sway. The size of the installation ISO image is 3.2 GB. Separate builds (2.6 GB) are provided for handheld devices (Handheld Edition) featuring a GameMode-style interface and components for gaming enthusiasts.
The distribution includes the BORE task scheduler by default, optimized to reduce latency on the desktop and prioritize interactive processes. The kernel and packages are built with LTO (Link-Time Optimization) enabled, utilizing instructions available in processors based on the x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4, and Zen4 microarchitectures. The base packages also include PGO (Profile-Guided Optimization) or BOLT (Binary Optimization and Layout Tool) optimizations. Filesystem options include btrfs, zfs, ext4, xfs, and f2fs.
Key innovations:
- Changes in the installer:
- A session based on the Hyprland composite manager with the minimalist Noctalia shell has been added to the available graphical environments.
- In the composite-based environment, serverMangoWM now defaults to using the SDDM display server.
- Instead of GNOME System Monitor, the Resources application written in Rust is now used for monitoring system status.
- The paru toolset has been removed, and it is recommended to use the Shelly package management interface for working with AUR.
- Real-time task execution privileges have been provided for packages in the 'audio' group.
- Improved keyboard layout detection has been implemented in the Live session.
- The CachyOS-Welcome application now includes an option to enable DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ), a new troubleshooting page, and support for the Ptyxis terminal emulator.
- In the Python packages, optimizations based on code profiling results (PGO - Profile-guided optimization) are used to generate more efficient code based on the program's execution characteristics.
- The GCC package includes a patch that increases the weight of mispredicted branches in x86 processors to enhance the performance of the generated code on modern Intel and AMD CPUs.
- The proton-cachyos package (Proton with additional patches) has been renamed to proton-cachyos-native.
- The pacman package manager now ensures isolation of scriptlet and hook execution, which is now not allowed to access the network.
- For of virtual machines The distribution includes a 32-bit driver with support for the Vulkan graphics API.
- In cachyos-settings, a 15-second timeout is set for starting user services and a 10-second timeout for shutting down, which resolved the issue of prolonged shutdowns caused by the previously applied 90-second timeout.
Source: opennet.ru
