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CachyOS

Preparation steps

System Requirements

Before beginning with installation preparations, make sure that the computer used meets the necessary system requirements in order to run CachyOS. The installer uses an online installation process so a stable and relatively fast internet connection is mandatory.

  • 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 can be used to create a bootable USB drive of CachyOS.

balenaEtcher

  1. Download balenaEtcher. balenaEtcher supports flashing an image of Linux, MacOS and Windows. If a .zip file was downloaded, 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 a USB drive to the computer.
  3. Select Flash from file and select the CachyOS ISO image file.
  4. Click Select target and choose the USB drive that was previously plugged in.
  5. Press Flash to start the flashing process.

Command Line Interface (Linux & MacOS)

  1. Plug in a USB drive.
  2. Detect the plugged USB drive using the following commands:
    Terminal window
    # Linux
    # The 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 the plugged USB drive by running:
    Terminal window
    # Replace <usbdrive> with the label of the 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 the plugged USB drive.

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 the plugged 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 a 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 the plugged USB drive by clicking on Device.
  6. Click on Install.
  7. After it finished installing Ventoy into the plugged USB drive, close the window and place the CachyOS ISO file into the new usable partition of the drive.