CachyOS – Good For A Daily Driver?

I drifted towards a distro called ArchBang which was cool. But as my Linux journey evolved I found that while Arch was cutting edge it didn’t support some of the programs that I wanted to use.

So I drifted away from Arch and landed smack dab in Ubuntu and Debian based distributions. One of my favorite websites to check in on Linux is distrowatch.com. For quite a while now I have seen that LinuxMint was toppled as the number one page hit ranking distro by none other than CachyOS.

So what’s a geek to do? Why download and install it of course.

My OS Needs

Before I get to the meat of this blog I just want to communicate a quick list of my actual needs for an OS. If the OS cannot support each of these tasks then it isn’t for me. Of course, your mileage may vary. What doesn’t work for me might be great for you.

• Browser
• ThunderBird Email
• ProtonMail Bridge
• OBS – for screen recording
• Entangle – Remote capture for digital cameras
• DarkTable – Same as Entangle
• Kaffeine – TV Tuner Software
• SDR++ Software Defined Radio Software
• WireGuard – VPN software
• Samba – Network sharing

There might be a thing or two more but that is essentially it. I recently tried GhostBSD and it did everything but support my USB TV Tuners. And because this is my television in the camper I simply can’t live with an OS that can’t supply that capability. Yes, I’m aware this is specific to me. Other than that GhostBSD is awesome.

CachyOS Stuff

Before I deployed this on an actual laptop I installed it in a virtual machine on my Proxmox VE server. To my surprise everything was supported so I moved to do an actual installation on my HP Pavilion laptop

The cool part of having a Virtual Machine is that you can test everything there first before deploying it on your actual hardware. Another cool part is using CachyOS in a virtual environment is not having to buy that hardware (unless you want to).

I’m using the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment which is pretty snappy. It has a Windows-esque feel to it but most desktop environments these days do. Between the AUR repositories, and FlatPak just about everything you can imagine software wise is now supported.

I’m a Ham Radio guy but other than RTL-SDR software below I’m not sure what else is supported in that world. This is my camping computer and not so much my Ham Shack computer, anyway.

Kaffeine

TV tuners are a funny thing. If you ever set one up on Windows you know that you either pay for the software or it just doesn’t work very well. Kaffeine has been my go to TV Tuner software on Linux for years. It installs easily and all you have to is configure the TV for ATSC (In the US) and then scan for channels. It has an electronic program guide (EPG) as well.

Click Pics To Enlarge

This will forever be one of my favorite programs Linux offers.

SDRPlusPlus (SDR++)

This wasn’t as easy as install and open. Every installation attempt from the package manager or AUR failed. I ended up building this one from source. No biggie. Now I can listen to all radio, local analog comms from Emergency Services, airport chatter, and NOAA weather radio not to mention about 100 other things. Make that 1000 other things.

Click Pic To Enlarge

The 1st screen shot just shows the program opened up and the 2nd pic shows it working with an RTL-SDR USB stick deployed.

Entangle And Darktable For Camera Tethering

I peruse Facebook Marketplace daily looking for a good deal. Some of the people out there take HORRIBLE and BLURRY photos and then expect their item to sell. Tethering a camera to a computer gives you instant feedback on your big computer monitor and then the file is right there to upload to your ad.

It’s not difficult to do and the improvement in your widget photos is tangible. On Linux there are two open source programs that do this very well.

• Entangle
• Darktable

Here are some pics of Entangle hooked to a Canon M50. Also there are dozens of settings you can display in the main controls area.

Entangle Connected To Canon M50 (click pics to enlarge)

I’ve found that even older cameras that are no longer supported by their own manufacturers are recognized by either Entangle or Darktable.

Final Thoughts

CachyOS has found a spot in my repertoire as a daily driver. Arch used to be hard, yet super fast, with not great software support. They’ve gotten a handle on the difficultly part of Arch and it seems like it supports almost all the hunks of software that Ubuntu or Debian based Linux distros support.

You probably could not go wrong trying out CachyOS! I love it! Be like me.