CachyOS — an Arch-based Linux distro focused on performance and gaming—has just released its July 2025 update, packing user-friendly improvements, gaming boosts, and better device support.

CacyOS July 2025 featured image

Following section briefly examines salient features in CachyOS July 2025 update.

🔹 Choose Your Shell During Installation

You can now select between Fish, Zsh, or stick with Bash during the installer. If no choice is made, Fish remains the default, but Bash is available as a safe fallback.

🖥 Wayland Is Now Default for KDE Plasma

New Plasma installs will boot into Wayland by default (using Plasma 6.4.2). For systems with older NVIDIA cards, an X11 session will install automatically to prevent issues.

⚙️ Easier Firmware Updates with fwupd

The update includes fwupd on both KDE and GNOME editions. Now firmware (for laptops, printers, etc.) can be managed easily using graphical tools like Discover or GNOME Software.

🚫 Better Stability: systemd‑oomd Disabled

The controversial systemd‑oomd feature—known for closing apps prematurely—has been disabled to improve system stability.

🎮 Gaming Enhancements: Anti‑Lag 2 and FSR 4

  • Mesa-git now supports AMD Anti‑Lag 2, reducing input lag in Vulkan games.
  • Proton‑CachyOS includes this feature and adds the PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE variable to automatically upgrade games from FSR 3.1 to FSR 4.
  • Includes upstream Wine-Wayland and anti-cheat patches for smoother gameplay.

🔄 Firefox Simplified and Cleaned Up

The older cachy-browser has been removed. In its place are:

  • cachyos‑firefox‑settings — a set of tweaks on standard Firefox, and
  • firefox‑pure — a fully optimized Firefox build included by default.

🎮 Handheld Edition Now Supports Lenovo Legion Go

The Handheld Edition now boots seamlessly on the Lenovo Legion Go (including the Go S model), with SteamOS-style tweaks included.

For further information on CachyOS July 2025 update - see the official release announcement.