I Built My Own Gaming Distro With AI - With A CachyOS Repo Switch Built In
Following on from the last video where I built a custom Linux distro with AI, this is part two — building it specifically for gaming. Think Bazzite, but bespoke to you, your hardware, and exactly how you play. And it has a trick…
Following on from the last video where I built a custom Linux distro with AI, this is part two — building it specifically for gaming. Think Bazzite, but bespoke to you, your hardware, and exactly how you play. And it has a trick the others don't: a single toggle to switch the whole system between base Arch and CachyOS repos, with a flick back if you don't like it.
It's all live on Git. visit the website to find out more .
Check out Chris Titus' book if you want the deep detail on distro components and packaging.
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WHY BUILD A GAMING DISTRO
Bazzite is optimised for gaming and it's great, but it's Fedora-based and locked down — you can't tinker with it much. CachyOS has gaming bits. Chimera is a dedicated gaming platform. But none of them are exactly what I want. I play everything through Gamescope with my DeckShift launcher, so I built a system oriented entirely around that. Your own console interface, your games, your hardware, your rules.
HOW IT'S BUILT — THE LAYERS
Same methodology as last time. Pick a base (Arch, because I know it). Set a clear goal — Arch, Hyprland, Celestia for the bells and whistles. Get the AI to package it in stages: installable Arch base, then layer Hyprland, then Celestia on top. Test in VMs, builder AI hands notes to test AI, migrations get written back, iterate until perfect. CachyOS seaward handles hardware detection for AMD, Nvidia, Intel.
The beauty of doing it yourself — you write it specifically for your hardware. None of the usual "will Linux work on my machine" worry. It's your ISO, your distro. I forgot to test my laptop at first, which mattered because it's got an iGPU plus discrete card, so hardware detection was critical there.
THE REPO SWITCH
Instead of building two separate ISOs, I built one with a toggle. Click it and the whole system pulls down CachyOS repos and kernels, auto-detecting your CPU for the right optimised packages. Flick it back and it reverts to base Arch. Select the CachyOS kernel from the Limine boot menu and you're running CachyOS underneath. I also told the AI to bake in all the CachyOS gaming scheduling while building.
THE GAMING SETUP
Install DeckShift from the additional software menu — it brings down the Steam Deck launcher and Steam, protected so the repo switch won't break it. Reboot, and a gaming icon appears that launches straight into Gamescope mode alongside the Super+Shift+S keybind. Set your monitor, resolution, and GPU (hybrid for laptops), turn off HDR, disable the frame limit, and play. It's like building your own console.
THE BENCHMARKS
I tested base Arch vs CachyOS repos on the desktop (Ryzen 9, 5060 Ti) and the laptop (Acer Nitro, Ryzen 7 8845HS, RTX 3050 6GB) — MangoHUD logging, 100ms samples, Doom, Returnal, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Homeworld 3.
I deliberately tested on the weak laptop because that's where I expected CachyOS to pull ahead. I also pulled the May Steam survey — most people are on six-core CPUs, 8GB cards like the 3060 and 3050, not 5090s. CachyOS is meant to shine on constrained hardware.
It didn't. Averages were tied. CachyOS repos showed marginally better frame pacing, but nothing you'd ever see while playing. Even on the restricted laptop, even on a default CachyOS Plasma install, the differences were infinitesimal. I genuinely cannot find the gap people talk about — and I'm not trying to knock CachyOS, I'm trying to find it.
THE TAKEAWAY
Both are brilliant. The real point isn't which is faster — it's that you can build your perfect setup. You can't do that with Windows or Mac. Round endlessly about whether CachyOS is quicker, or just build the thing you want. That's the beauty of Linux.
THE PROJECT
Everything's on Git with an embedded Claude agent file, so any AI on the system knows how to fix and amend it. Pull it down, build the ISO, fix what doesn't work with your own AI. I won't be fixing broken bits — that's the whole point of the exercise. You could even do this with a local model like Qwen instead of Claude Code.
I'll keep this on the laptop for gaming. My work machine stays Omarchy — I need to earn a living.
ABOUT THIS CHANNEL
I make videos about Linux, Omarchy, gaming, AI workflows, and self-hosting. Subscribe if that's your thing.
00:00 - Start
00:13 - INTRO
06:05 - BUILD YOUR OWN
09:28 - INSTALL
15:04 - INSTALL GAMES LAUNCHER
26:20 - CACHY REPOS
28:06 - BENCH MARKS
34:15 - FINAL WORDS