CachyOS

CachyOS provides enhanced kernels that offer improved performance and other benefits.

• General Information about kernels
  • linux-cachyos
  • Features
• CachyOS repositories
  • How to add CachyOS repositories
  • Check CPU compatibility
  • Uninstalling CachyOS repositories
  • Install SCX schedulers - only for linux-cachyos-sched-ext
• Other GNU/Linux distributions
  • Gentoo
  • Fedora
  • NixOS
• Support

General Information about kernels

The Schedulers listed below are supported

linux-cachyos

We have provided all these CPU schedulers because each scheduler performs differently depending on usage. We recommend testing each one to determine which best suits your specific requirements.

• (BORE) Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer Scheduler by firelzrd (BORE) linux-bore / linux-cachyos-bore / linux-cachyos
• (EEVDF) Earliest Eligible Virtual Deadline - linux-cachyos-eevdf
• (SCHED-EXT) BPF extensible scheduler class - linux-cachyos-sched-ext
• (ECHO) Enhanced CPU Handling Orchestrator Scheduler by Hamad Marri - linux-cachyos-echo

CachyOS default kernel

• (SCHED-EXT) BPF extensible scheduler class - linux-cachyos

📚 Archived schedulers

• CacULE and CacULE-RDB by Hamad Marri, supported by CachyOS in the past as - linux-cachyos-cacule
  ATTENTION: Not supported after version 6.1. If you still want to use it, you can get it from the archive repository - linux-cacule
• (CFS) - Standard Scheduler Completely Fair Scheduler - linux-cachyos-cfs
• (BMQ) - BitMap Queue by Alfred Chen - linux-cachyos-bmq
• (PDS) - Priority and Deadline based Skiplist multiple queue by Alfred Chen - linux-cachyos-pds
• (TT) - Task Type Scheduler by Hamad Marri - linux-cachyos-tt / linux-tt
  ATTENTION: Not supported after version 6.6.

The CachyOS repositories provide prebuilt kernels in three different march versions: x86-64, x86-64-v3, and x86-64-v4. In addition, the repositories also offer LTO-enabled kernels.

Features

Here is a list of features of Linux kernels prebuilt in the CachyOS repositories for x86-64-v4, x86-64-v3, and x86-64.

🛠️ Advanced building & compiling

• Very customizable PKGBUILD with many features and improvements.
• GCC/CLANG Optimization with automatically found CPU architecture or also selectable CPU architecture.
• Choose between LLVM/LTO & Thin-LTO or GCC.
• Choose between 300Hz, 500Hz, 600 Hz ,750Hz and 1000Hz. Defaults to 500Hz
• Kernel Control Flow Integrity (kCFI) selectable when using LLVM

🧮 CPU enhancements

• 3 Different scheduler are supported,SCHED-EXT,BORE,EEVDF and ECHO scheduler
• AMD P-State Preferred Core, AMD cpb boost (disable boost) and upstream amd-pstate enhancements
• SCHED-EXT Schedulers prebuilt in the repository # https://lwn.net/Articles/922405/ - linux-cachyos and linux-cachyos-sched-ext
• Cachy Sauce (CONFIG_CACHY), enables various tweaks for the scheduler and other settings

📑 Filesystem & memory

• Latest BTRFS/XFS/EXT4 improvements & fixes
• ZFS Filesystem Support and prebuilt in the repository
• NVIDIA Module Support - Build the nvidia module together with the kernel
• Latest & improved ZSTD 1.5.6 patch-set
• UserKSM daemon from pf
• Improved BFQ Scheduler

🖧 Network

• BBRv3 tcp_congestion_control

⤵️ Other features

• partial Clearlinux Patchset.
• Back-ported patches from linux-next
• Scheduler patches from linux-next/tip
• OpenRGB and ACS Override support
• AMD: Allow override of min_powercap with amdgpu_ignore_min_pcap

CachyOS repositories

The repositories contain both Arch Linux and CachyOS packages, which have been re-built with flags optimized for performance, stability, and security.

• x86-64-v4 - all Arch Linux packages + LTO
• x86-64-v3 - all Arch Linux packages + LTO
• x86-64 - currently only kernel packages

How to add CachyOS repositories

Option 1: Automated Installation of cachyos repositories

We've made it easy for you! Simply run the following commands to use our helper script that does all the work for you. 😉

Run the following commands:

1. Get archive with script

wget https://mirror.cachyos.org/cachyos-repo.tar.xz

If you don't have wget, install it with sudo pacman -S wget

2. Extract and enter into the archive

tar xvf cachyos-repo.tar.xz && cd cachyos-repo

3. Run script with sudo

sudo ./cachyos-repo.sh

Behaviour of script

1. Script will auto-detect CPU architecture, if CPU has x86-64-v4 or x86-64-v3 support, script will automatically use the repositories which are optimized with this flag > and some other flags.
2. Script will backup your old pacman.conf.

For more information, check out our GitHub or join our Discord community.

Option 2: Manual Installation

1. Install the cachyos keyring

sudo pacman-key --recv-keys F3B607488DB35A47 --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com
sudo pacman-key --lsign-key F3B607488DB35A47

2. Install required packages

ATTENTION: Installing the CachyOS Pacman, will install a forked pacman with features added from CachyOS, like "INSTALLED_FROM" and an automatic architecture check. Pacman 6.1 added a feature validation feature, which could lead when using the Archlinux pacman into warnings. We are working with archlinux to provide a proper compatibility again. If you want to avoid this, don't add the "cachyos" repository, which contains the customized pacman. All other repositories like cachyos-v3, cachyos-v4, cachyos-extra/core-v3/4 are fine to add.

sudo pacman -U 'https://mirror.cachyos.org/repo/x86_64/cachyos/cachyos-keyring-20240331-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' 'https://mirror.cachyos.org/repo/x86_64/cachyos/cachyos-mirrorlist-18-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' 'https://mirror.cachyos.org/repo/x86_64/cachyos/cachyos-v3-mirrorlist-18-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' 'https://mirror.cachyos.org/repo/x86_64/cachyos/cachyos-v4-mirrorlist-6-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' 'https://mirror.cachyos.org/repo/x86_64/cachyos/pacman-6.1.0-5-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst'

Check CPU compatibility

If you want to add our repositories manually, you must check the compatibility of the CPU with cachyos repositories.

If you are using the script above to add cachyos repositories, you can skip the check.

1. Check support by running the following the command

/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help | grep supported

2. Understanding of command output

Pay attention to the following text with brackets. (supported, searched)

• If you see x86-64-v4 (supported, searched), that means the CPU is compatible and can use x86-64-v4 instruction set.
• If you see x86-64-v4, that means the CPU is incompatible and can't use x86-64-v4 instruction set.

Example of CPU compatible with x86-64-v4 instruction set

> /lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help | grep supported
  x86-64-v4 (supported, searched)
  x86-64-v3 (supported, searched)
  x86-64-v2 (supported, searched)

3. Adding cachyos repositories

You need to edit pacman.conf and add repositories.

sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf

if your CPU supports x86-64, then add only [cachyos] repositories

# cachyos repos
[cachyos]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-mirrorlist

if your CPU supports x86-64-v3, then add [cachyos-v3],[cachyos-core-v3],[cachyos-extra-v3] and [cachyos]

# cachyos repos
## Only add if your CPU does v3 architecture
[cachyos-v3]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-v3-mirrorlist
[cachyos-core-v3]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-v3-mirrorlist
[cachyos-extra-v3]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-v3-mirrorlist
[cachyos]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-mirrorlist

if your CPU supports x86-64-v4, then add [cachyos-v4], [cachyos-core-v4], [cachyos-extra-v4] and [cachyos]

# cachyos repos
## Only add if your CPU does support x86-64-v4 architecture
[cachyos-v4]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-v4-mirrorlist
[cachyos-core-v4]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-v4-mirrorlist
[cachyos-extra-v4]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-v4-mirrorlist
[cachyos]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/cachyos-mirrorlist

Finally, update your system with CachyOS packages:

sudo pacman -Syu

Enjoy improved system speed with CachyOS packages!

Debug packages

See CachyOS Wiki

Uninstalling CachyOS repositories

See Uninstalling Cachyos Repositories

Install SCX Schedulers

If you choose linux-cachyos or linux-cachyos-sched-ext you can install scx-scheds package, which includes external schedulers, which can be started in userspace and detach the kernel scheduler

sudo pacman -S scx-scheds
# or -git package for latest features and updates
sudo pacman -S scx-scheds-git

Below is a list of schedulers with their locations:

/usr/bin/scx_central
/usr/bin/scx_flatcg
/usr/bin/scx_lavd
/usr/bin/scx_layered
/usr/bin/scx_nest
/usr/bin/scx_pair
/usr/bin/scx_qmap
/usr/bin/scx_rlfifo
/usr/bin/scx_rustland
/usr/bin/scx_rusty
/usr/bin/scx_simple
/usr/bin/scx_userland

To start the scheduler, execute in the console:

sudo scx_NAME

Other GNU/Linux distributions

• Complete patch for simple patching on the kernel
• It is planned to implement into our kernel builder from cachyos buildsystem, which works also on other distributions.

Gentoo

Its a community maintained ebuild from a user, which can be used for a dynamic building right here

Or simply run:

eselect repository add CachyOS-kernels git https://github.com/Szowisz/CachyOS-kernels
emaint sync -r CachyOS-kernels

Fedora

Port of kernel linux-cachyos-bore, linux-cachyos-rt-bore, linux-cachyos-bore-lto and linux-cachyos-lts by bieszczaders

Visit the COPR page for installation instructions and the latest announcements.

NixOS

Nyx does provide a precompiled CachyOS Kernel and a bunch of other interesting packages. This repository is maintained by chaotic-aur Just follow this README

Support

Discord: https://discord.gg/cachyos-862292009423470592
Telegram: https://t.me/+zCzPX4cAFjk1MTYy
Matrix: https://matrix.cachyos.org

Donations appreciated for maintaining repositories and build server. Thank you for your support!

PayPal: https://paypal.me/pttrr
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/CachyOS
BTC: bc1qmwglfchlc335du6pcu6w64cexu7cck0mzhyw42
ETH: 0xc2dc77327F78A7B85Db3941Eb49e74F41E961649
LTC: LgGTwcEBcXqMgNT6XyyNWABMb7dZVtVg9w

Valueable Contributors

Hamad Marri for the TT Scheduler
Archlinux for the great linux operating system
And all other Kernel Developers and Supporters