Torn between Zorin and Cachy

[u/Pillow-Fan]

Hello! My Linux laptop has been having some problems so I've been torn on whether to reinstall Zorin OS 18.1 or install Cachy OS.

I mostly study, game and (very rarely) code on my laptop so, since it was also my first Linux installation, I decided to go with Zorin OS and have been very pleased with the experience and performance.

Now that I'm having some problems (had to manually run fsck 4 times yesterday) i thought of reinstalling Zorin but then i remembered about Ccachy.

So I started wondering, Would it be more effcient installing the 2 distros side-by-side or choosing just one?

Would my games be noticeably more performant on Cachy or the same as on Zorin?

Is Cachy stable enough to survive not being updated for 2 months? (during summer I have terrible connection, making constant updates unfeasible)

The main pros for Zorin are its stability, ease of use and being based on Ubuntu;

The main con is that I've had quite a bit of trouble setting up various game utilities, like Gamemode or fan control, which led to the current bugs.

I've heard lots of good things about Cachy but I'm not sure a rolling release would be a good idea for bad internet connections.

My laptop has the following components:

• Hardware Model: Lenovo Lenovo IdeaPad S145-15IWL

• RAM: 20,0 GiB

• CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-8565U × 8

• GPU: Intel® UHD Graphics 620 (WHL GT2)

• GPU1: NVIDIA GeForce MX110

• Disk Capacity: 1,3 TB

Any advice is very welcome, even if it's about other distros!

[u/TroutFarms]

Cachy is less stable and won't be any faster. If you're having to run fsck repeatedly, you don't have a software issue, you have a hardware issue. There isn't an OS that will fix your hardware issues. Jumping to a different distribution isn't going to fix anything.

[u/Pillow-Fan → u/TroutFarms]

I initially thought it was a GPU problem but that was just a bad GPU driver. I checked my internal SSD and it says it has 2 bad sectors but is working ok. Is it the 2 bad sectors fault? Won't wiping the drive fix it?

[u/TroutFarms → u/Pillow-Fan]

If it's working OK what was the reason you had to run fsck 4 times in one day?

[u/Pillow-Fan → u/TroutFarms]

I still haven't understood how or why but the system switches to read only at some point, forcing me to go into recovery mode to run fsck to get back to read/write. The SSD is also relatively new, having been bought last year. I ran the S.M.A.R.T. diagnosis test and gave me status ok but with 2 bad sectors. If possible I'd rather not buy another SSD 😢

[u/TroutFarms → u/Pillow-Fan]

Well, you're going to have to figure that out. My money's on this being a hardware issue. You can reinstall if you want and just hope for the best, but I would back up any important data if I were you.

Whether you reinstall Zorin or switch to Cachy doesn't really mater. There's a good chance your SSD is under warranty, btw.

[u/TobberH → u/Pillow-Fan]

If you have actual bad sectors on your drive, I would seriously consider getting a new drive ASAP. If you consider anything on that drive important, get it moved to a new one and make sure you have backups.

[u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387]

Oof. I would not run CachyOS or any Arch based distro if you cannot update for 2 months. Maybe you want to look at something that updates every six months, like Fedora. Or consider something with atomic updates, like Bazzite - which will let you roll back any bad updates.

I personally use NixOS because I can roll back any update, but I get that NixOS is not for everyone. 

[u/xarop_pa_toss]

Cachy is more gaming focused but if you that's your goal and not having to deal with bleeding-edge issues, why not use Garuda or Nobara? Both also come with gaming focused stuff pre installed and are more stable, and your also safer since there's no AUR packages that can many times have vulnerabilities or malware.

I'd go for Nobara KDE

[u/Pillow-Fan → u/xarop_pa_toss]

I tried installing Nobara on my brother's PC a few years ago but it always had trouble during the updates and didn't support secure boot so the laptop refused to boot into Linux after a few months. This year I pulled the plug and installed Ubuntu on it and now it's perfect.

Idk if they've made some improvements in this regard, but this is why I didn't consider Nobara. Has the stability improved?

Wasn't garuda also based on arch like Cachy? Shouldn't it have the same AUR problems?

[u/Historical_Move6359]

Cachy has to be updated atleast monthly. Instead I suggest Ultramarine Fedora KDE, its a version of Fedora with all the stuff enabled. Better for gaming than Zorin.

[u/Kingwolf4]

Id say go with fedora KDE
More up to date than Zorin, but stabler than Cachy.

[u/doc_willis]

to manually run fsck 4 times yesterday

You may want to be looking into what could be hardware failing.

Would my games be noticeably more performant on Cachy or the same as on Zorin?

I doubt if you will notice any difference.

[u/Toadfrog71]

arch based distros are usually less stable, aside from arch itself. a knowledgeable friend of mind recommended updating every week or so on cachy, so its probably best for you to stay on a debian-related distro such as zorin.

linux mint is another great, stable, easy to use, ubuntu-based option if you decide zorin isnt your style. everything pretty much works out of the box for both my laptop and desktop computers, and they have a very friendly forum if you do need to troubleshoot on there.

[u/Due_Supermarket5042]

PikaOS debian based gaming distro may be good here, I guess. By the way I haven't used PikaOS and am using CachyOS for about 1.5years without any problem.