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Distributions and Operating Systems: A "next generation of Linux distros" and CachyOS Considered
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XDA ☛ I’m excited for the next generation of Linux distros, and for one big reason
Linux has always been an alternative to mainstream operating systems. As Windows and macOS became more rigid and closed over time, a gap emerged. Users wanted an OS that didn't inflict extensive tracking, telemetry, and bloatware, and Linux gained traction due to this problem. However, gaming has been a Windows-only thing for the last two decades, and it was one of the extremely weak points for Linux. You could switch to it and even use open-source tools for every other task, but gaming didn't feel the way it performed on Windows.
However, with the recent surge of gaming-focused Linux distributions like Bazzite, SteamOS, and kernel-level improvements, the future looks promising. It makes me excited about the next set of Linux distributions that heavily incline towards offering the best possible gaming experience.
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XDA ☛ CachyOS has a one-click Windows VM button, and dual-booting feels completely outdated
For years, dual-booting felt like the grown-up answer for anyone who wanted Linux without fully giving up Windows. You got native performance, direct hardware access, and the comfort of knowing your fallback OS was sitting right there, waiting for you at startup. That made sense when Linux still had wider compatibility gaps and when setting up a virtual machine felt like a side quest rather than a practical solution. But the moment an operating system starts treating a Windows VM as an everyday tool rather than an enthusiast project, that old logic starts to wobble.
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This simple CachyOS feature lets me use Windows without dual-booting
Switching to Linux has never been easier, but there is still one significant problem: the software ecosystem.
There are still a handful of applications that don't really work on Linux. Some of them are niche productivity tools. Sometimes it is firmware software for a particular device, or Adobe’s suite, which technically runs but is error-prone.
Even if most of what you need works on Linux, the remaining one or two apps have an annoying ability to force you back to Windows. That’s why dual-booting remains common. However, dual-booting is also tedious. Rebooting an entire system just to open one program feels like overkill if you only need it for a few minutes.
CachyOS just shipped Linux 7.0, and it has some extra performance tweaks added to the mix
After a few worrying release candidates, Linus released the Linux 7.0 kernel a few days ago. While there seemed to be more bug fixes than usual during the preview builds, Linus felt that the changes were small enough not to warrant a delay. He also believes the increase in fixes was due to AI assistants getting better at finding problems in the code, which is valid.
If you want to give Linux 7.0 a try, CachyOS is one of the very first distros to bring it into the fold. Not only that, but the CachyOS team has managed to squeeze in a few tweaks from 7.1, too.
CachyOS has released a performance oriented Linux 7.0 kernel - Neowin
Just a week after the release of Linux 7.0, where the Linux boss Linus Torvalds had pushed towards the AI-driven kernel development, the performance-oriented Arch Linux-based CachyOS has now released the kernel for Linux 7.0 for its users. This new kernel has brought in new performance improvements, hardware activation, and filesystem updates.
One of the major improvements done in the kernel was to improve the Multi-Gen LRU (MGLRU). It is a memory management technique wherein RAM works more efficiently, thereby prioritizing the programs for VRAM memory allocation, which was a significant burden for gamers and developers. Furthermore, scheduling enhancements are done in order to improve the task distribution across CPU cores.
The distro in this release has also introduced Flexible Return and Delivery (FRED) support for the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake processor architecture, which was unveiled recently. This will provide a much more significant boost in the performance, along with gains for I/O tasks.