CachyOS August 2026 release improves handheld detection
The latest CachyOS ISO refresh brings a rewritten Shelly package manager in Zig and enhanced handheld hardware identification via DMI board_name patterns.
CachyOS has released its August 2026 ISO update, introducing changes to package management, hardware detection, and the installation workflow. Existing users can apply these updates without reinstalling their Arch Linux-based system.
Shelly: Rewritten in Zig
The default graphical package manager, Shelly, has been completely rewritten from C# to Zig, removing its dependency on a managed runtime. According to the developers, the native version uses less memory and starts faster, though CachyOS has not yet published benchmark data comparing the two versions.
New features in Shelly include repository and AUR search, PKGBUILD previews with build output from the AUR, and utilities for database synchronization, cache cleanup, and removing orphaned packages. The command-line interface can now check repositories, the AUR, AppImages, and Flatpaks simultaneously. Flatpak integration is available via an optional shelly-flatpak-backend package.
CachyOS is also shifting more of its own tools to Rust. The kernel-manager backend has been rewritten from C++ to Rust and integrated into chwd-kernel, while the Cachy-Update system tray applet received its own Rust rewrite. Cachy-Update is now based on Arch-Update 4.x and checks for updates every six hours by default.
Better Handheld Detection and Server Edition Prep
The chwd hardware detection tool now identifies handheld systems by analyzing patterns in the DMI board_name field. CachyOS states this improves detection of handheld hardware and fixes issues with missing DMI information and virtual machines. This affects the same detection system used to assign drivers and profiles on handheld installations.
The command-line installer has also gained experimental installation profiles for the upcoming CachyOS Server Edition. No release date has been announced for the server version yet. Other August changes include new Noctalia configurations for Mango and Niri, Plasma 6.7 theme updates, revised mirror ranking, and an updated gaming guide that removes older launch options no longer required with current proton-cachyos-slr releases.
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