Over the past few years, I have tried a huge number of distributions, window managers, and desktop combinations. Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, i3, Sway, KDE, X11—I went through all of them multiple times.
At some point, I realized that an operating system should stop being a standalone hobby. A computer should work, not constantly demand repairs after every system update.
As a result, my current setup looks like this:
To be honest, at first I was quite skeptical about CachyOS. Just another Arch-based distribution among dozens released every year.
However, after several months of daily use, my opinion completely changed.
It is one of the few distributions that actually feels noticeably faster than vanilla Arch.
At the same time, all advantages of Arch remain intact:
For many years I used i3, then Sway.
After switching to Niri, I simply don’t want to go back.
The core concept of Niri is an infinite scrolling canvas instead of traditional Workspaces 1, 2, 3, 4…
Conceptually it works like this:
← Browser ← Docs ← IDE ← Terminals ← Monitoring →
You no longer need to remember:
Everything exists on a continuous workspace and moves intuitively.
For a developer, this workflow feels incredible.
A few years ago, I wouldn’t have recommended Wayland as a primary workstation driver.
Today the situation is completely different.
Everything works without a hitch:
Over the last few weeks, I haven’t experienced a single display server crash.
The most impressive part is that all of this runs smoothly on a 2015 laptop.
The system remains ultra-responsive even with multiple browser instances, IDEs, dozens of terminal sessions, Docker containers, and local LLMs open simultaneously.
Compared to modern desktop environments that consume gigabytes of RAM right after boot, this is extremely refreshing.
After system updates, everything keeps working smoothly. That’s a surprisingly rare quality in modern Linux.
There is virtually zero input latency between keystrokes and UI responsiveness.
You don’t feel like the computer belongs to the distro. It is strictly your tool.
No system is perfect.
After more than twenty years with Linux, I reached a simple conclusion:
A great operating system isn’t the one with the most eye candy or trendy features. A great operating system is the one you forget even exists.
When weeks pass and you realize you haven’t had to fix anything, edit broken configs, or recover after a broken update—you know everything was done right.
Right now, the combination of:
ThinkPad X1 Carbon + CachyOS + Niri + Fish + Alacritty
has proven to be one of the most pleasant Linux setups I’ve used in years.
