The Arch-based CachyOS distribution has released its March 2026 update, featuring animated previews in the installer and improvements for handheld gaming devices. Powered by Linux kernel 6.19, the update includes Winboat integration and various system fixes. This follows the January update, bringing the second major release of the year.
CachyOS, an Arch Linux-based distribution focused on performance, issued its March 2026 update on March 8, 2026. This release, the second of the year after the January version, is built on Linux kernel 6.19.
A prominent addition is animated previews in the Calamares installer. Users selecting desktop environments now view GIF or WebP clips showcasing options like KDE Plasma, GNOME, Niri, and COSMIC. The desktop list has been reordered, progressing from simpler setups to advanced window managers. The installer also automatically detects and installs the appropriate CPU microcode package, either for Intel or AMD processors, avoiding unnecessary installations of both.
Integration with Winboat, a tool that runs a Windows virtual machine in Docker to facilitate Windows software use on Linux, is now available. Users can install and enable it with one click through the CachyOS Welcome application.
System tools have seen refinements: the cachyos-settings utility now sets the wireless regulatory domain based on the user's timezone. The bug reporting script automatically redacts sensitive information, such as IP addresses, hostnames, usernames, and MAC addresses, prior to submission.
For the Handheld Edition, targeted at gaming devices, changes include replacing gamescope-session-plus with gamescope-session-cachyos, a fork of Valve's gamescope-session that supports firmware updates for devices like the Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go. The login manager has shifted to plasma-login-manager from SDDM. Limine is now the default bootloader, supporting automatic snapshots, with systemd-boot as an alternative. The installer has merged with the desktop Calamares version, and the installation environment operates on Wayland rather than X11.
This update addresses several issues: bcachefs has been removed from filesystem options due to its requirement for the separate bcachefs-dkms module. Problems with LUKS2 encryption on specific devices have been resolved, and enabling the Ly display manager now functions correctly.
Users can apply the updates via a standard system upgrade using the command sudo pacman -Syu.
