Powered by the Linux kernel 7.1, the Arch-based CachyOS has released its August 2026 installation images as its fifth ISO refresh this year, with Shelly, the default graphical package manager, undergoing a complete rewrite for this release, moving from C# to Zig.
The application has also been redesigned, with a new first-run welcome screen added. Additionally, packages can be browsed in list or grid views, and AUR users can preview PKGBUILD files and inspect build output directly from the interface.
Shelly’s command-line side has been expanded as well. It now offers integrated searching across both the official repositories and AUR, along with a combined update check covering repository packages, AUR packages, AppImages, and Flatpaks.
Backup handling was added through TOML-based import and export functionality. Importantly, Flatpak integration is no longer bundled directly and is now available through the optional shelly-flatpak-backend package.
Another noteworthy development is the first appearance of experimental installation profiles for the upcoming CachyOS Server Edition. These were added to the distribution’s CLI installer, which also received several fixes and internal refactoring in this release.
Cachy-Update has also seen significant work. The tool was rebased on Arch-Update 4.x, and its system tray applet was rewritten in Rust.
A new --check --enable option now lets users enable automatic update checks and launch the tray applet in one step. Pagination in the tray can be configured through the TrayUpdatesPerPage option, and the default interval between update checks has been increased to six hours.
Elsewhere, the installer includes several desktop-specific adjustments. CachyOS installations using Hyprland with Noctalia now rely on noctalia-greeter instead of SDDM, while Cinnamon switches from lightdm-gtk-greeter to lightdm-slick-greeter.
Moreover, GNOME installations now include gvfs-dnssd, while cosmic-monitor has been added for the COSMIC desktop environment. CachyOS has also introduced new Noctalia variants for Mango and Niri, added Noctalia v5 support to its Hyprland dotfiles, and updated the Nord KDE theme for Plasma 6.7.
CachyOS-Welcome received revised DNS handling so its speed-test-based server ranking can correctly select the fastest DNS server. Plus, the cachyos-rate-mirrors tool now uses the CachyOS mirrorlist API when ranking mirrors, which developers say should improve handling of outdated and geographically relevant mirrors.
Finally, CachyOS has updated its gaming documentation, removing several old launch options that are no longer required when using current versions of proton-cachyos-slr.
Existing CachyOS users do not need to make any manual changes. As usual, updating the system with sudo pacman -Syu is sufficient. New installation images for both Desktop and Handheld editions are now available from CachyOS mirrors.
For additional details, see the announcement.
