The CachyOS development team has launched the July 2025 ISO snapshot of this popular Arch Linux-based distribution, introducing a much-anticipated feature: users can now select their preferred shell during installation. The new options include cachyos-fish-config and cachyos-zsh-config. Should users not select either, the system will default to Bash, while Fish remains the default configuration.
Additionally, this update sets the Wayland session as the default for all new installations using the KDE Plasma desktop environment. For users on hardware that doesn’t support Wayland, the Plasma X11 session will be added automatically to avoid complications. The ISO snapshot utilizes the latest KDE Plasma 6.4.2 version and includes the Linux 6.15 kernel series.
The July 2025 release also incorporates fwupd into both the KDE Plasma and GNOME editions, removes the problematic systemd-oomd, and introduces support for AMD Anti-Lag 2 in Proton-CachyOS. There are also enhancements related to the PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE variable and Wine-Wayland integration.
A significant change is the discontinuation of the cachy-browser package, which has been succeeded by cachyos-firefox-settings, designed to be applied over a standard Firefox installation. The Handheld Edition of CachyOS also sees updates in this release, now supporting the Lenovo Legion Go device with several configuration enhancements.
For more details on this release and to access the downloadable versions, users can refer to the release announcement page and the official website. Existing users can simply update their installations by executing the command sudo pacman -Syu in a terminal or through graphical package managers like Plasma Discover or GNOME Software.