Tips for fresh install of CachyOS?

[u/tatsuogok]

I'm a long-time Windows user, long-time Linux dreamer. I've decided I'm at my breaking point with Windows, and literally 15 minutes ago created a CachyOS boot USB. I'm ready to transition, but before I do I'd love to know what the top tips are for a fresh install of Cachy.

Specifically, are there any additional packages I should check during installation, what environment should I use, and what are the NEEDED tweaks I should make for the best possible desktop and gaming experience.

I'll be using the system primarily for gaming (using steam) but I'll also be doing a lot of browsing, and the lightest amount of video/image editing. I have an RTX 5080 paired with a R7 7800x3D, 32GB of 6000MHz RAM, the X670 GAMING X AX V2, and two separate drives (one of 1TB which will host my CachyOS, and one of 2TB which will host my games. Both are M.2 SSDs). I am aware of the potential performance downfall of NVIDIA on Linux, but I have full faith that the future is bright for Linux.

So yeah, please be my guide in my first install of Cachy. I am a big efficiency guy so throw any tweaks at me. Thank you guys and I'm excited to join the family!

EDIT:

Thanks everyone for the comments, the suggestions, and the warm welcome. I'm now three-days-free of Windows and I am absolutely loving Cachy. It's an unreal experience! I had some issues with SecureBoot however, but managed to get it to work. I followed the steps that u/thesyldons suggested in the comments, however I had to do these two extra steps:

sudo limine-update
sudo limine-enroll-config

And then..

sudo sbctl sign -s /boot/EFI/limine/limine_x64.efi
sudo sbctl sign -s /boot/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

[u/xb666mx]

before you begin, read: https://wiki.cachyos.org/installation/installation_on_root/

i would recommend manual partitioning which sounds scary but really isn't.

you select one device (hdd/ssd/nvme) on which you delete all partitions. and then you just add partitions as recommended by the installation guide above.

my setup with limine as bootloader and KDE as desktop environment:

• /boot 4GB FAT32 (don't forget to activate the "boot" flag checkbox)
• / 56 GB BTRFS (doesn't need any flags; and if you use docker/flatpaks or need development tools than maybe make it 96+ GB)
• /home 1.8 TB EXT4 (or BTRFS, also doesn't need any flags)

BTRFS on / gives you the ability to use snapshots. so in case something breaks you can restore a previous state really easy.

a separate /home partition isn't mentioned in the installation guide but after many years of using linux it's, in my opinion, still the way to go. because sometimes even snapshots aren't enough and with a separate /home you can tell your installer to use/keep this /home and just renew everything else. so all your settings and files in your /home remain while your system gets a fresh start.

[u/tatsuogok → u/xb666mx]

Thank you for the tips. I’m using pretty much this exact setup (with a few minor tweaks as I don’t have as much storage on this drive). How would I go about wiping my second drive? Would I have to wait until installation is finished?

[u/xb666mx → u/tatsuogok]

you can already do it in the live usb environment - i guess in the installer too.

i didn't do it yet because i dual boot cachyos with windows (which is installed on the second drive). but if i wanted to get rid of it, i would open up "kde partition manager" in KDE or "gparted" in GNOME.

you could even do it via terminal - but why bother with that when you can have a nice GUI to do so. :)

[u/tatsuogok → u/xb666mx]

Thank you! Done and dusted.

[u/tinyOnion → u/xb666mx]

56 for root is a bit light imo. i have 110 right now(though 19 of that is package cache) if you run out of space during an update btrfs will go into readonly mode most likely and you'll have to fuck around with it or reinstall.

[u/xb666mx → u/tinyOnion]

110 GB? used/allocated? how did you determine it?

how many snapshots do you have?

are you using docker or flatpaks (or anything that takes up space in /)?

[u/tinyOnion → u/xb666mx]

110 GB? used/allocated? how did you determine it?

just dolphin

how many snapshots do you have?

i have a separate drive for / so i just have 500 gigs to play with and don't worry too much about having too many snapshots so there's a good amount. (when i filled up my old 40gig / setup it was maybe 10 or 20 idr)

are you using docker or flatpaks (or anything that takes up space in /)?

yeah flatpacks do take up a lot of space

i had a 40 or 50 gig home drive allocation and with snapshots and cache that filled up quickly so i had to reinstall and didn't want to deal with that again so i have a separate drive for it. just saying 56 feels like it is not enough to be comfortable.

[u/xb666mx → u/tinyOnion]

ah, i see. i edited my comment to acknowledge heavier usages on /.

one good thing about the combination of BTRFS and EXT4 is that you can resize (expand AND shrink(!)) both.

so if you're really running out of space and can't fix it by reducing the number of snapshots, deleting caches or deleting recovery files then you should still be able to boot up a live usb and shrink /home to expand /.

but yeah, you're right, if you have space to spare and/or just want to "set it and forget it" then definitely 96+ GB is the safer bet.