Pop!_OS was outdated and couldn’t handle my new AMD GPU. I tried alternatives like SteamOS, but that failed too. Eventually found CachyOS, an Arch-based, but plug-and-play distro. Now everything works perfectly. If you’re gaming on Linux, I highly recommend it.

A few days ago, I accidentally messed up my computer so badly I couldn’t recover the OS. In my desperation to reinstall, I figured, why not fix a few other things too?

I’ve been gaming on Pop!_OS, but with my new AMD graphics card, it’s been a challenge to get it working. Pop is still stuck on 22.04, with an old kernel, and I had all sorts of issues getting my new AMD graphics card to work.

I eventually got it running by updating to XanMod kernel, manually updating Mesa to 25+ and downloading form firmware files that should be able to better connect the two. And I got it working.. sort of. I could play Dune Awakening, but the game had a hole in the terrain around the player, not ideal when you’re jumping around on cliffs.

So I started looking elsewhere.

I had me eye set on Ubuntu, as I knew that the official AMD driver for my card should be able to be installed without any problems. But when I mentioned it to my CTO friend, he almost chocked on his coffee. He suggested SteamOS. So I tried. But the installer just got stuck at a black screen. Dead end.

Then I stumbled on another distro called CachyOS. Never heard of it before, but figured why not? It’s Arch-based (which I actually had tried before), and it looked to be a fast implementer of new kernels, so why not try. I just want things to work.

I picked the GNOME desktop as that’s what I’m used to, and got CachyOS installed. And everything just worked out of the box. No messing with kernels. No driver downloads. So I installed Steam, launched Dune Awakening, hit “play”, and it ran perfectly, high framerate, and best of all no holes in the sandy floor.

So, if you’re on Linux and having trouble gaming, give CachyOS a try. Or if you are on Windows and had enough of forced updates, endless telemetry, or hardware demand changes.

CachyOS just works. Massive thanks to the contributors and maintainers, you’re doing an amazing job.