Skip to content
CachyOS

Preparation steps

System Requirements

Before you begin with the preparation for installation, you need to make sure that your computer meets the following system requirements in order to run CachyOS. Bear in mind that our installation process uses online installation.

  • 3 GB RAM
  • 30 GB of Storage Space (HDD/SSD)
  • Stable internet connection

x86_64 Microarchitecture Level Support

  • Intel
    • Haswell and later generations (e.g., Broadwell, Skylake, Coffee Lake, etc)
  • AMD
    • Ryzen Series

Creating a Bootable CachyOS USB Drive

There are several tools and methods that you can use to create a bootable USB drive of CachyOS.

balenaEtcher

  1. Download balenaEtcher. balenaEtcher supports flashing an image of Linux, MacOS and Windows. If you downloaded the .zip file, extract it and execute the binary using the following commands:
    Terminal window
    # Extract zip file:
    bsdtar xvf <zip file name>
    # cd to the new folder:
    cd balenaEtcher-linux-x64/
    # Execute balenaEtcher:
    ./balena-etcher
  2. Plug in your USB drive to your system.
  3. Select Flash from file and select the CachyOS ISO image file.
  4. Click Select target and choose the label that matches your USB drive.
  5. Press Flash to start the flashing process.

At the end of flash process you will get a Flash Completed! message. Close balenaEtcher and reboot your system to boot into the CachyOS Live ISO.

Command Line Interface (Linux & MacOS)

  1. Plug in your USB drive.
  2. Detect the plugged USB drive using the following commands:
    Terminal window
    # Linux
    # Your USB drive could be identified e.g: /dev/sda, by disk model and size.
    sudo fdisk -l
    

    # MacOS
    # USB drives are identified as "/dev/diskY" where "Y" could be 0,1 etc.
    diskutil list
  3. Copy the iso contents to your USB drive by running:
    Terminal window
    # Replace <usbdrive> with the label of your drive.
    sudo dd bs=4M if=full_iso_name.iso of=/dev/<usbdrive> status=progress oflag=sync
  • dd will now copy the contents of the ISO file over to your USB drive.

Once it’s done, you will be ready to use the USB drive as the CachyOS installation media. Reboot your system to boot into the CachyOS Live ISO.

Rufus (Windows Only)

  1. Plug in USB drive.
  2. Download Rufus and install it, or run the portable version.
  3. On Device, click on the dropdown list and select your USB drive.
  4. On Boot selection, click on SELECT and locate the CachyOS ISO image file.
  5. Click START.

Ventoy (Linux & Windows)

  1. Plug in your USB drive.
  2. Download Ventoy
  3. Untar Ventoy using the following command:
    Terminal window
    # Replace version with the correct one e.g: ventoy-1.0.99-linux.tar.gz
    bsdtar xvf ventoy-version-linux.tar.gz
    # cd to the new folder: (version might change)
    cd ventoy-1.0.99/
  4. Execute VentoyGUI.x86_64 by either double clicking on it or via the terminal:
    Terminal window
    # It will ask for administrative privileges, enter your credentials
    ./VentoyGUI.x86_64
  5. Select your USB drive by clicking on Device.
  6. Click on Install.
  7. After it finished installing Ventoy into your USB drive, you can now close the window and place the CachyOS ISO file into the new usable partition of the drive.