The developers of the Arch Linux-based CachyOS distribution have released a new ISO snapshot today, for January 2026, which brings the latest package updates, new features, and various improvements.
The CachyOS Release for January 2026 ships with the latest KDE Plasma 6.5.5 desktop environment with the Wayland session enabled by default and the new Plasma Login Manager that will be introduced in the upcoming KDE Plasma 6.6 release. Plasma Login Manager replaces SDDM on new installations.
The new CachyOS ISO also contains both stable and LTS kernels to improve compatibility for newer devices and hardware, a new service that shows the syncing status of the CachyOS mirrors, and an updated NVIDIA module to reduce interrupt time for low-latency displays.
For anyone else who was curious like me, there are manual steps required for existing installs to use the plasma login manager:
**Manual changes for existing users:** KDE Plasma users with SDDM can now migrate to Plasma-Login-Manager. Please run: sudo pacman -Syu plasma-login-manager sudo systemctl disable sddm sudo systemctl enable plasmalogin sudo pacman -R sddm-kcm cachyos-themes-sddm sddm After that you can use in Plasma Settings under the KCM “Apply Settings”.Is this upgrade going to be done automatically at some point?
Good question. It could go either way - SDDM and PLM are different enough that any customisations you did on SDDM are at risk of breaking when going to PLM. So they either do it automatically and upset those with customisations that don’t work, or you keep it manual and upset those that don’t want to do it manually.
Given that CachyOS is more aimed at those more comfortable with the terminal (Arch-based) I tend to think it’ll remain manual.
