CachyOS August 2024 Release Changelog

Announcements
1

Hello CachyOS Enthusiasts,

This is our 9th release this year, featuring improvements in hardware detection and infrastructure enhancements.

Starting with this release, the hardware detection will automatically use the open NVIDIA modules. Users can revert to closed-source modules by running sudo pacman -S linux-cachyos-nvidia.

We’ve also included the latest NVIDIA Beta driver (560) after extensive testing. This driver appears to be in a stable state following its second beta release.

The Cosmic Desktop Environment is now available for installation. We’ll follow the upstream release (Alpha 1) for packaging. Packages based on the latest commit are available, though these won’t be used for installation. Existing users can install Cosmic on their current setup with the command: sudo pacman -S cosmic-session. This installs the base packages for running Cosmic. Additional packages like cosmic-text-editor, cosmic-terminal, and cosmic-store are also available.

Our infrastructure has seen significant improvements:
We’re proud to announce that CDN77 is sponsoring us with a worldwide cache CDN. This greatly enhances connection speeds for users, especially in regions we previously couldn’t serve effectively with our existing mirrors. This CDN has been tested for about 3 weeks by us and the community, receiving positive feedback.

We’re now providing an Arch Linux mirror and Cache CDN (CDN77), which will be the default during installation. This addresses issues with mirror ranking often selecting outdated mirrors, leading to dependency problems and failed installations. This solution ensures fast package delivery from the CDN while avoiding these issues.
Two fallback mirrors hosted by us will also be used, along with one Tier 1 mirror from Arch Linux.

The Kernel Manager has received several new fixes and changes. The sched-ext configuration now supports passing custom flags via the GUI to each scheduler. NVIDIA-open modules for custom-built kernels have been added, and it now remembers the last used options for custom-built kernels. Fixes for password prompt handling in case of delays and building with a custom pkgname with LTO and NVIDIA modules enabled have also been implemented.

We’ve added a script to easily handle Secure Boot, along with a detailed Wiki page explaining the usage of sbctl.

The cachy-chroot program can now automatically mount user partitions from the Live ISO, simplifying the process of chrooting into the system when issues arise. It checks for mounted filesystems and subvolumes in fstab, mounts them on the correct paths, and chroots into the system. LUKS support has also been added to cachy-chroot.

The CachyOS Hardware Detection has been improved with fixes in PRIME/Hybrid Profile detection, now based on device names for easier detection of mobile chips. The RTD3 Workaround has been removed due to issues on some setups, with a guide added to the wiki for manual application if needed.

Common fixes have been applied to the ISO, game-performance script, Calamares, and mirror ranking on the Live ISO.

The Handheld Edition now officially supports the Ally X, thanks to Luke Jones’ extensive work on these patches and testing by ChimeraOS and Bazzite. Device support has been verified by multiple CachyOS users.
KWin’s libei is now used for Wayland Input Emulation instead of libextest. Fixes have been added to block the use of PackageKit on the Handheld Edition, as it generally causes issues on Arch Linux-based systems.

Changelog for this Release:

Features:

  • chwd: NVIDIA now uses the open module as default for supported cards
  • Desktop: Added Cosmic Desktop Environment to the installation options
  • NVIDIA: Latest 560 Beta driver is now the default; egl-wayland patched to fix crashes in Firefox and other applications
  • mirrors: CDN77 sponsored CachyOS with Object Storage featuring a worldwide cache, significantly improving connection speeds for users
  • mirrors: CachyOS now provides its own Arch Linux mirror to avoid syncing issues, set as default during installation along with fallback mirrors
  • SecureBoot: Introduced script and tutorial in the Wiki for easy Secure Boot support
  • cachy-chroot: Added auto-mount via fstab for simplified chrooting
  • cachy-chroot: Implemented support for LUKS Encryption
  • kernel-manager: Added support for setting sched-ext flags in the sched-ext configuration
  • kernel-manager: Introduced option to build nvidia-open
  • kernel-manager: Added option to remember last used options in configure page
  • Package Updates: linux-cachyos 6.10.5, mesa 24.2.0, Plasma 6.1.4, NVIDIA 560.31.02

Bug Fixes:

  • chwd: Improved PRIME profile detection based on device name
  • chwd: Removed RTD3 workaround due to issues on some setups
  • cachyos-rate-mirrors: Disabled mirror ranking when running on Live ISO
  • cachy-chroot: Fixes a crash when a partition didn’t have a valid fstype or uuid (eg Microsoft Recovery Partition)
  • calamares: Refactored keyring initialization
  • kernel-manager: Fixed support for building custom pkgbase with LTO kernels and modules enabled
  • kernel-manager: Fixed password prompt delay
  • ISO: Replaced radeon.modeset=1 with amdgpu.modeset=1 for modern GPUs
  • game-performance: Prevented failure when profile is unavailable

Changelog for Handheld Edition:

  • device support: Added support for Ally X, thanks to Luke Jones
  • libei: Implemented support for libei, replacing libextest
  • packagekit: Blocked packagekit installation to prevent issues with system updates via Discover
  • hook: Added pacman-hook to conflict with natively compiled Proton versions, avoiding potential issues
  • Updated jupiter-fan-control, steamdeck-dsp, and Steam Deck firmware

Manual changes for existing users:

No special changes required.
For users, which have a NVIDIA Card, which supports the Open Module (20xx or higher) can use the nvidia-open driver with following command:
sudo pacman -S linux-cachyos-nvidia-open

Download:

Desktop Edition:

Grab your copy of the latest ISO from our mirrors on SourceForge:

Handheld Edition:

Support Us:

Your contributions help us maintain our servers. Consider supporting CachyOS through:

Thank you for your continued support!

The CachyOS Team

19 Likes
4

Awesome work, @ptr1337 ! Been using CachyOS since June.
Any difference regarding installation and configuration compared to the latest testing ISO you provided until yesterday? I reinstalled everything 12h ago.

6

@altman No issues on my end as well. Just curious if something changed in terms of configuration during the installation compared to the testing ISO.

7

No differences. Generally, we mention if manual changes are required.

Besides that just updating the system is enoug.

2 Likes
9

Thanks for the update @ptr1337 & CachyOs Team
A little confusing, would you be obliged to answer please so I’m thinking trying CachyOs currently I’m on Fedora Workstation 40 therein secure boot is handled by themselves without any use interaction and in CachyOs it is mentioned in Wiki to disable secure boot and go through the SecureBoot enablement process in latest iso (Aug 18,2024) there in secure boot Wiki steps mentioned to sbctl so from what I understood was -

  1. Disable Secure boot
  2. Install CachyOs (btw I will be using systemd-boot with manual partition 2G-Fat32-BootEFI 8G-Swap Remaining SpaceG-BTRFS-Root"/" )
  3. After successfull installation
  4. Reboot to Firmware Settings/Bios Settings
  5. Reset To Factory Key for Secure Boot while keeping the SecureBoot Disabled
  6. Boot to CachyOs and install sbctl
  7. Setup SecureBoot using sbctl and follow the steps mentioned in Wiki
  8. Reboot to BIOS Setting and Enable the SecureBoot
    So is the above steps correct.
11

We sadly can not handle secure boot like Fedora does.

Yes, generally this is correct. You dont need to setup a swap tho, CachyOs does use as default zram. if you use hibernation, then you might want to use swap, besides that no.

The secure boot setup is written here:

1 Like
12

fixed, thanks for telling

2 Likes
14

Thanks for the clarification :grinning:

15

Earlier it was written that in some games, such as overwatch and applications, there are performance problems on the open driver, have they been fixed? Does it make sense to switch to open drivers?

16

560 has improved a bunch of stuff, but there could be some issues here and there.
Generally, in my performance tests with 560 it looked fine, even tough only benchmarked cyberpunk.

In case you are finding regression, please provide a detailed report, and we can forward them to nvidia.

18

When I tried to switch to an open driver, it was shown that it was already installed, although I downloaded the cachy os image 5 days before the update post, how can I check whether I am using an open driver?

19

Hi,

When you select it at the ISO, this is only for the driver used on the ISO.
CachyOS is an online selection and has a hardware detection, therefor we handle it over that and the open driver is used as default for this installation.

On the ISO we will not use the open driver directly for now, since we would block older graphics card, like 10xx and 9xx

21

Yea sadly it looks like raytracing performance is broken on linux. (-40% vs windows)

22

For some unknown reason this latest update for handheld when I fresh install it to my Steam deck LCD it just flashes the screen after starting up after install. Any fix?

24

Ive pushed a little update. Would you mind to recheck?

I have also forwarded the reports to Nekoh, which will take a look soon (different time zone)

25

Just tried it still doing the same flashing blank screen

26

We are narrowing down right now. So far at first analysis, it appears that the recent update of steam, makes it completly crash.

e.g:
this update Switch packaging source to archive of the apt repo (8ec83746) · Commits · Arch Linux / Packaging / Packages / steam · GitLab

But we are investigating further.

27

The issue should be now fixed and the fix is synced to all mirrors. Please retest.

28

Yeah it’s Fixed, awesome Thanks.