What exactly have the developers done? It all starts with the Linux kernel. First and foremost, CachyOS now ships with kernel 7.0.0.1. However, this isn't just any old Linux kernel; this is the CachyOS kernel. What does that mean? Well, the CachyOS kernel uses a specifically tuned scheduler, options for BORE, sched-ext, BMQ, and RT.

At the same time, every app in the CachyOS repository is compiled for x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4, and Zen4 instruction sets, plus LTO. The core CachyOS packages also receive additional PGO and BOLT optimization, with zero manual rebuilds required.

That's a lot of acronyms, but it all boils down to speed. And with those patches and customizations, the 7.0.0.1 kernel is a well-oiled machine. And with the 7.0 kernel's improved swap performance, everything just seems faster. According to OMGUbuntu, the swap improvements result in "20% better throughput in workloads where multiple processes share the same swapped-out memory (tested using Redis with persistence)."

Even though Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux) states that there's nothing special in the latest kernel, working with the latest updates to CachyOS would suggest otherwise.