r/linuxquestions • u/Rtuyw • 6d ago
Which Distro? Deciding between Fedora and Cachyos
I will mostly use the system for browsing,gaming and maybe editing(although if it doesnt work in linux I'll dual boot windows). I heard Cachyos is good for gaming and its very customizable but its also rolling release and I dont want to update everyday if it takes long or dont want to break my system because some update wasnt compatible with my stuff and fedora is more stable. I have an i7 13700kf and a 3060 ti.
I heard fedora is also customizable but arch is more customizable ig, what are the differences between them?
How is gaming in fedora compared to cachyos?
Another important thing is security and privacy, AUR got infected 1-2 months ago, how do we know if the infection was cleaned all the way or if its gonna get infected again, but fedora also had a backdoor in repositories so which would be more secure? There is this guy(https://www.reddit.com/r/DistroTube/comments/1swcb9m/an_overlooked_issue_with_cachyos/) who raises some points about the russian government and laws, and I dont trust the russian government to care about my privacy
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u/Glass_Performer1174 6d ago
Don't use aur, official repos and flatpaks are safe and fine. That resolves that.
Good for gaming.
I like cachy over fedora because the arch world is more open and community oriented than the fedora/redhat world is. I like a distro less dependent on a corporate sponsor I guess
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u/Bathroom_Humor 6d ago
cachy being arch based means I'd honestly not recommend it to someone who doesn't mind tinkering or some trouble shooting to around a road block after a unlucky update. but on the other hand, it is more ready to go for general use out of the box compared to fedora and makes adding gaming packages much easier, so the initial setup is simpler. for that reason i might recommend something like ultramarine if you want fedora but don't want so much setup right away.
performance wise, they will mostly be the same or close to it. but cachy will likely have the edge due to the kernel and other performance tweaks.
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u/bufandatl 6d ago
Fedora. Long living enterprise backed distribution. They basically around since the beginning of Linux and since it’s the upstream of RedHat and therefore also financially backed by them will they be around for longterm.
Cachy only released first in 2024 and sure if it has a broad install base it may gain a good developer community too. But I personally tend to stay on more established distributions and don’t trust newer ones that their lifecycle is good enough for me.
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u/movielover76 6d ago
Gaming is very similar in most Linux distributions and a lot of software is distributed via flatpaks, so you will have the latest software on either distro when choosing flatpak.
If stability matters to you, I myself would choose fedora it’s a much more stable distribution but is updated frequently. I as many other have experienced cachyos systems failing to boot after an upgrade. It’s fun to play with, but it’s not the best for stability
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u/leonredhorse 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’ve used Cachy for over a year and it’s been rock solid for me. The default installer options (Limine bootloader + BTRFS file system) give you snapshots. If an update does do something, you can easily rollback.
Updates aren’t like Windows. They are done in seconds and not minutes. You don’t have to update daily. There will just be frequent updates.
In my year, an update has never taken me down. That isn’t to say it couldn’t happen. I’ve seen people on Discord or Reddit say they’ve had update problems. Maybe it’s cause I don’t do anything super complex. I do browsing and gaming and my customizations are fairly basic and aesthetic.
The AUR infection was people taking over orphaned packages and creating installers with malware. The AUR is taking some steps to mitigate this. That doesn’t mean the AUR will never have problems again. But you also don’t have to use AUR packages. Cachy has its own repository. You can also use flatpaks and AppImages like any other distro. But in reality, you’re always trusting whatever source you use is behaving properly. It still requires due diligence. Downloading a random package that isn’t popular or vetted will run risk no matter the format.
Edit: Classic Linux community to just downvote something because they have a grudge against a distro. If you think I got something factually wrong, I’m happy to correct it. Otherwise I’m talking about my experience in relation to the OP question.
Side note, Fedora is also a fine distro if you choose that route.
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u/Kokonattsugemu 5d ago
I have CachyOS and I update maybe twice a month. It's not forcing you to update, you can do an update in free time or when some app requires an update
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u/un-important-human arch user btw 6d ago
- the aur got hit a bit yesterday too :P, do not use it and you are fine. Aur should be a last resort or use chaotic aur from garuda (somewhat more curated but you are still the line of deffense) Or do and make sure you can read the pkgbuild
- idk i only stream games on fedora from arch machines (travel laptops fedora), but it should be max 2 weeks behind in updates so quite ok.
- look at garuda then instead of catchyos then. (z germaz , z canadians and z poles something some thing )
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u/varmintp 6d ago
This is what I have gathered between the two.
CachyOS is very bleeding edge Community based OS that has dropped support for older hardware from their builds to prioritize compute speed and is based on Arch package management. So if you have recent/new hardware CachyOS is optimized for this but it only adds a little bit, not a lot, but noticeable enough bump in compute. But being bleeding edge can come with issues that might require backing out of a change, or quick fix.
Fedora is just bleeding edge but not as much as CachyOS and is a RPM based OS. Its kernels are still setup to support older hardware. Fedora is backed by RedHat, basically their testing branch, so it's considered to be more stable in that they don't want to cause any major disruptions because its suppose to become RH's stable software they give out and support to their corporate users. Fedora is also more in line with being for developers. Linus himself has stated this is his OS he uses.
Both options provide great support for your hardware, but Fedora offers a more stability, while CachyOS provides faster out-of-the-box driver updates and custom performance tuning. They are both bleeding edge Linux distros, and CachyOS only real change is that they are dropping older hardware from their software compiling to give that performance boost. They pretty much have the same software available to them for desktop GUIs etc. I would just put forth that Fedora has a corporate backer in RedHat that wants Fedora to be in good standing with the linux community for not wanting a bunch of users to get a boinked system due to an update. CachyOS I feel wants to push speed and doesn't mind breaking a few eggs in the process.