CachyOS January 2026 Release Changelog

Announcements
1

Hello CachyOS Enthusiasts,

This is our first release of the year, bringing a host of improvements to the installer, the new display manager (Plasma Login Manager), and much more!

First, we have significantly reworked the installer and added many quality-of-life improvements. The bootloader selection has been moved directly into the installer, featuring a description for each option; Limine is now selected as the default bootloader. Architecture detection now happens at the very beginning of the installation process, which reduces the download size by around 1 Gigabyte. Additionally, we now pass the --needed flag to pacman to avoid reinstalling up-to-date packages. The mount options for NVMes have also been improved when BTRFS is selected, now defaulting to compression level 1.

Next, the ISO has been switched to Plasma Login Manager, and the Live ISO now uses Wayland instead of X11. The ISO now contains a Stable Kernel alongside an LTS Kernel to improve compatibility for newer devices and hardware.

For desktop environments, the Plasma installation now uses Plasma Login Manager instead of SDDM. The Niri settings have been reworked, and we are now using Noctalia. The GNOME installation has been massively cleaned up, and a dedicated subgroup has been added for GNOME applications.

We are also introducing a new service that shows the syncing status of our mirrors. This helps provide visibility into whether the mirror you are using is synchronized. You can check it at: https://packages.cachyos.org/mirrors.

Regarding other key changes, the NVIDIA module now includes the new option EnableAggressiveVblank, which reduces interrupt time for low-latency displays. In terms of hardware detection, CachyOS now installs nouveau-fw for older NVIDIA cards, enabling VA-API support for Kepler-family cards. The “AI-SDK” has received support for newer AMD GPUs, and handheld device detection has switched from “HHD” to steamos-manager with inputplumber. Furthermore, Proton-CachyOS now supports FSR4 ML Frame Generation on RDNA4 and RDNA3 cards. We have added d7vk to proton-cachyos along with DualSense haptic feedback patches. We also removed a patch that was degrading 1% low FPS performance, and protonfixes now better handles DLSS/XeSS/FSR preset selection.

On the bug fixing side, we have resolved installation issues on Framework laptops with Zen 5 CPUs. We also fixed a long-standing issue where users could proceed with the installation even if the EFI partition was too small; this will now be blocked, and the user will be notified. Additionally, support for several controllers has been fixed by updating udev rules to the latest versions. Finally, in CachyOS-Hello, we fixed an issue where it incorrectly showed cachy-update as disabled when it was actually enabled.

Features:

  • Installer:
    • Moved bootloader selection to Calamares; management is now consolidated into a single package.
    • Architecture detection is now performed before the base system installation to reduce download size.
    • GRUB now uses LUKS2 for encryption.
    • Pass --needed to pacman to avoid installing packages twice.
    • Use single-level compression on NVMe for Btrfs
    • Removed xorg dependecies on Wayland desktops environments
  • ISO:
    • Switched to plasma-login-manager for the ISO environment.
    • The ISO now contains both Stable and LTS kernels. The Stable kernel is selected by default.
    • Switched the ISO session from X11 to Wayland.
  • Netinstall:
    • Plasma installations now use plasma-login-manager instead of SDDM.
    • Niri now uses noctalia-shell and updated dotfiles.
    • Cleaned up the GNOME installation process.
  • Slides: Fixed typos in the Calamares slides and added a new slide showcasing the Wiki.
  • Mirrors: The mirror status page (https://packages.cachyos.org/mirrors) now displays the syncing state of CachyOS mirrors.
  • cachyos-settings: Enabled EnableAggressiveVblank for the NVIDIA module. This reduces time spent in the interrupt top half for low-latency display interrupts.
  • chwd:
    • Installs nouveau-fw to enable VA-API support in Nouveau for NVIDIA Kepler-family cards.
    • Added AI-SDK support for several new AMD GPUs.
    • Replaced HHD with steamos-manager and inputplumber.
  • Proton-CachyOS:
    • Added FSR4 MLFG (Machine Learning Frame Generation) support; automatically enabled when using PROTON_FSR4_[RDNA3_]UPGRADE
    • Added d7vk module support. This can be enabled via PROTON_DXVK_DDRAW=1
    • Imported DualSense haptic feedback patches
    • Added WINE_BLOCK_HOSTS to prevent Wine from connecting to specific domains
    • Automatically enable ENABLE_HDR_WSI=1 when using winewayland on NVIDIA dGPUs
    • Fixed keyboard layout issues when using winewayland.drv
    • Removed a long-standing patch that was causing degraded 1% low FPS
    • Patched protonfixes to better handle DLSS preset selection and libxess_dx11.dll redirection
    • proton-cachyos-slr is now used as default in the “gaming-meta”. The native version will be still supported.

Fixes:

  • Limine: Increased boot partition size to 4192MB to accommodate high requirements from limine-snapper-sync.
  • Installer:
    • The installer now blocks/prevents proceeding if the EFI partition is too small when using “alongside” or “replace partition” options.
    • Fixed an issue, when selected a desktop and go a step further, then going back again and selecting a different desktop it would result that both are selected.
  • chwd: Removed the environment variable forcing libva-nvidia-driver, as it caused issues on dual-GPU systems.
  • cachyos-hello: Fixed an issue that cachy-update shows being disabled, while its enabled.
  • Controller: Fixed several controllers input due updating the input rules to the latest.
  • Framework 16 (Zen5): Fixed an issue that the session freeze, when writing into calamares

Manual changes for existing users:

KDE Plasma users with SDDM can now migrate to Plasma-Login-Manager. Please run:

sudo pacman -Syu plasma-login-manager
sudo systemctl disable sddm
sudo systemctl enable plasmalogin
sudo pacman -R sddm-kcm cachyos-themes-sddm sddm

outside of this the usual:

sudo pacman -Syu

Download:

Desktop Edition:

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

Support Us:

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

Thank you for your continued support!

The CachyOS Team

3

Here also a picture of the new bootloader selection:

image
image1648Ă—878 125 KB

4

Don’t you mean systemctl not pacman in the enable for the plasmaloginmanager ?

5

Thanks xD ive fixed it

6

Running the mentioned commands to switch to plasma-login-manager results in the following errors:

Fehler: Vorgang konnte nicht vorbereitet werden (Kann Abhängigkeiten nicht erfüllen)
:: Entfernen von sddm verletzt Abhängigkeit »sddm«, benötigt von cachyos-themes-sddm
:: Entfernen von sddm verletzt Abhängigkeit »sddm«, benötigt von sddm-kcm

Is it safe to remove both of the packages?

7

Thanks for the update!

However, I question the decision to switch to Plasma Login Manager. There is certainly a reason why it is still in KDE-unstable in the Arch repos, and the Arch wiki states: “It is currently not considered ready for real-world usage.”

Switching to core packages in CachyOS which are still considered unstable in Arch is a problematic approach, IMHO. CachyOS is often used by users not yet very experienced who like its easy installation. Risking breakage by adding packages which are not yet considered mature enough doesn’t do a service to them.

EDIT: Even the developers’ site states:

It is not recommended to install this on your system — you should use a virtual machine instead. Installing this on real hardware will leave behind files not trivially uninstallable and could leave your system in a non-functional state.

Considering this I’m tempted to say that such an approach is able to damage the reputation of this distro. Disappointing decision - sorry.

8

I switched to the Plasma-LoginManager, but now the automatic login does not work anymore.

9

I’m also uncertain as to the use case of plasma-login-manager. I had tested it earlier (months ago), and the problem I had continues. It works fine for the first login, but logging out, results in a black screen.
It may be just me..and could be a relic of sddm setups?

10

Lots of great changes, thanks for all of your efforts!

Please consider installer options for:

  • Swap type (ZRAM not ideal for everyone)
  • Make the separate @home subvolume optional on btrfs
    • If you store your user data on other partitions, it’s better to keep /home integrated with @ subvolume, for keeping system snapshots consistent with .config, etc
  • Gaming meta packages listed in the extra package selection screen
    • For visibility, many new users don’t realize these exist
  • Login shell selection
    • Fish is quite nonstandard, can cause friction in unexpected places
    • You can switch after install, of course, so this is mostly for extra polish / user friendliness

Many thanks!

11

You can pass this in the settings and regenerate the config!

12

I have updated the guide. Please use the provided commands!

13

Take a look here. It will be default with Plasma 6.6, which is in 2-3 weeks released! :slight_smile:

14

I turned automatic login off, restarted, turned it on again, restarted. But i still have to type in my password.

15

/etc/plasma-login.conf instead of plasmalogin.conf

Ill try to patch it in stable plasma :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed:

16

Pardon me but as someone new to linux and cachyos being my first distro ( tried a bunch of others ) do we get these new enhancements by updating? i cannot distinguish between the sddm or the plasma login. Am i required to do something manual?

17

It will come in on plasma 6.6, and his (@ptr1337) instructions are laid out nicely:

sudo pacman -Syu plasma-login-manager
sudo systemctl disable sddm
sudo systemctl enable plasmalogin
sudo pacman -R sddm-kcm cachyos-themes-sddm sddm

And done, on the next reboot you will have the newish plasma-login-manager

18

Thank you so much i will run the code.

19

Pushed an plasma-login update for proper support with plasmalogin-kcm!:slight_smile: Autologin and wallpaper setting works now.

20

Yes, everything listed in the changelog automatically comes by updating, outside few specifics one which are related to the installation process.