CachyOS March 2026 Release

Hello CachyOS Enthusiasts,

This is our second release of the year, bringing animated desktop previews in the installer, Winboat integration, a reworked website, and significant handheld edition changes!

First, the installer now shows animated GIF/WebP previews in the Desktop Selection to showcase each desktop environment. This is currently enabled for Plasma, GNOME, Niri and COSMIC, giving users a much better idea of what to expect before making their choice. And also, added support for JPEG XL in the Desktop Selection to reduce image sizes. The Desktop Environment list has also been sorted from easy and accessible setups to more advanced ones like window managers. Cachy-Update is now enabled by default for GNOME and KDE installations. The microcode installation logic has been improved - it will now detect the hardware and install the proper microcode instead of installing both and then removing the unneeded one. The error message when the EFI partition is too small has also been improved.

CachyOS-Welcome now includes a button to easily install and enable Winboat for a seamless Windows Docker VM experience. We have also added support for keyboard navigation to improve accessibility.

On the kernel side, linux-cachyos now publishes tagged releases in a dedicated Linux repository, replacing the previous single-patch (0001-cachyos-base-all.patch) workflow. chwd has massively decreased the initramfs size for NVIDIA dGPU configurations. We have also improved the experience for users in China with cachyos-rate-mirrors, which now includes a proper check before rating the mirrors. In cachyos-settings, the wireless regulatory domain is now automatically set based on the user’s timezone. The website design has been reworked and improved to follow more modern standards.

For the Handheld Edition, we have replaced gamescope-session-plus with gamescope-session-cachyos, which is forked from Valve’s gamescope-session and enables firmware updates for Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go devices. SDDM has been replaced with plasma-login-manager, and Limine is now selected as the default bootloader with automatic snapshots - systemd-boot will still be selectable.

On the fixes side, we have removed bcachefs from the filesystem selection, as it now requires bcachefs-dkms. We also fixed encryption when LUKS2 is used and fixed enabling the “ly” display manager. In cachyos-settings, cachyos-bugreport.sh now redacts IP, username, hostname, and MAC address.

Finally, we are happy to announce new mirrors in Russia (jura12), Sweden (Zyner), and Canada (All Things Linux).

Features:

Installer:
- Added support to show GIF/WebP videos in the Desktop Selection to showcase the desktops. This is enabled for Plasma, GNOME, Niri and COSMIC
- Added support for JPEG XL in the Desktop Selection to reduce image sizes
- Cachy-Update is now enabled by default for the GNOME and KDE installations
- Improved microcode installation logic — it will now detect the hardware and install the proper microcode instead of installing both and then removing the unneeded one
- Improved error message when the EFI partition is too small
- Sorted the Desktop Environment list from easy and accessible setups to more advanced ones like WMs
CachyOS-Welcome:
- Added a button to easily install and enable “Winboat” for an easy Windows Docker VM
- Added support for FFMUC DNS server in DNS selection
- Added Ukrainian translation
chwd: Decreased the initramfs size massively for NVIDIA dGPU configurations
linux-cachyos: Instead of generating a 0001-cachyos-base-all.patch, a release is now generated in a Linux repository for each release of our patched kernel
cachyos-rate-mirrors: Improved the experience for users in China&Russia massively with a proper check before rating the mirrors
cachyos-settings: Added support to automatically set the wireless regulatory domain based on timezone
website: The website design has been reworked and improved to follow more modern standards
GitHub: Added issue templates to important GitHub repos to improve the quality of bug reports and provide guidance for the user
Mirrors: New mirrors in Russia (jura12, cachy-arch.ru), Sweden (Zyner), and Canada (All Things Linux)

Fixes:

Installer:
- Removed support for bcachefs in the filesystem selection due to the requirement of bcachefs-dkms
- Fixed encryption when LUKS2 is used for specific devices
- Fixed enabling the “ly” display manager
cachyos-settings: cachyos-bugreport.sh now redacts IP, username, hostname, and MAC address
chwd:
- Generic handheld profiles and improved support for handheld GPUs
- fwupd is now enabled for Lenovo handhelds

Changelog for Handheld Edition:

gamescope-session: Replaced gamescope-session-plus with gamescope-session-cachyos, which is forked from Valve’s gamescope-session
- Enables firmware updates for Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go devices
plasma-login-manager: Replaced SDDM with plasma-login-manager for the login manager
bootloaders: Limine is now selected as default with automatic snapshots. systemd-boot will still be selectable
Installer: Merged Handheld Calamares with desktop edition calamares together
ISO: ISO now uses Wayland instead of X11

Manual changes for existing users: No manual changes needed. Just the usual updating:

sudo pacman -Syu

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:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/CachyOS

Thank you for your continued support!

The CachyOS Team