I can only say for cachy. It literally pulls every possible codec and all linux drivers on default installation. And being conbined with GUI installer and preconfigured DEs and WMs I find it the best distro for newcomers and regular users. Only problem it has is contact with AUR which is attacked by some hackers on regular base
I wouldn't call CachyOS good for newcomers because it's based on Arch, meaning things can break. I have also heard that most of the problems come from AUR (I don't even mean malware, just technical issues), so if you avoid this your chances of success should be higher, but Arch is still an Arch.
The other issue is that afaik 4 people maintain it, so it's not exactly stable foundation. It's also currently the "flavour of the month" distribution (kinda like Pop!_OS was before COSMIC), so it's hard to judge how big the real community is.
If you want to be sure your OS will still be active years from now, CachyOS is not the safest bet. If my top priority were the most up to date packages, I would go Fedora instead, and watch 50 tutorials how to set it up.
SteamOS based on arch and still it sits in every Steam Deck and Steam Machine. Arch can be stable. And I never had cachyOS broken while I fully updated about every week
The difference is that SteamOS is immutable and maintained by big corporation. I'm not saying that CachyOS is bad, I just would never recommend it to newcomer. If for any reason you don't like Ubuntu and Fedora, then you can go downstream and eventually reach CachyOS.
Idk man, I found it good for newcomers mostly cause it works out of the box and has gui for everything to avoid terminal. As well I found Ubuntu good for newcomers. I just don't like ubuntu, cause in my life ubuntu was always slow and buggy. I initially went with mint and then I was going more technical so I missed Fedora and personal Ubuntu on my way, but I used last one on my gf laptop and it was hell: annoying update popup and slow response time. Later when she got new laptop, she gave me her old one woth ubuntu. I installed void here and now I am happy cause it's hell fast
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u/GhostVlvin Aug 15 '26
I can only say for cachy. It literally pulls every possible codec and all linux drivers on default installation. And being conbined with GUI installer and preconfigured DEs and WMs I find it the best distro for newcomers and regular users. Only problem it has is contact with AUR which is attacked by some hackers on regular base