In this post, I show how I installed CachyOS Linux (Arch-based) on a Geekcom IT13 Mini PC.

These are the main specs of the Mini PC:

Processors: 16 × 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-13620H
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31.1 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: Intel® Graphics

I’m installing CachyOS “cachyos-desktop-linux-260628.iso”; I downloaded the ISO and copied it into my Ventoy USB stick.

The installation procedure

The installation procedure is rather easy and smooth, especially if you’re used to a Calamares-based installer (e.g., the one also used by EndeavourOS).

Before starting the installer from the Welcome dialog, I changed the keyboard layout, using the standard KDE System Settings element:

By the way, the scaling was automatically set to 130%; that’s quite a strange setting (in the past, I was using 125% on this computer). However, everything looks great. The same scaling will persist after installation, and I think I’ll keep it.

Let’s start the installation:

I always prefer GRUB as the boot loader.

I prefer to manually partition my installations.

I have Windows on this computer (which I never use, but for the moment I’ll keep it). I had previously created another EFI partition because the one that came with Windows is too small.

So I just need to select it and set the correct mount point: 

Then, I mount additional existing partitions to the mount points I want:

I’m removing the existing Linux distributions I had installed on this computer (EndeavourOS and Arch):

Then, I create the main partition, BTRFS. Note that Calamares allows you to specify that a partition is put at the end of the disk (if I remember correctly, other installers don’t allow you to do that):

When I go on, I get the usual warning about a too-small EFI partition. However, I know there’s enough room, and I go on.

I select KDE Plasma (by the way, CachyOS provides several desktop environments!):

I select the printing support packages, and I keep the default ones.

You might want to have a look at the default packages:

User details as usual:

A final look at the partitioning scheme:

Let’s start and look at a few slides during the installation.

As you might know, CachyOS aims to be a performance-based distro, with optimized compiled packages and kernels. For my computer, it uses the “v3” optimization:

Done!

Let’s restart!

Tweak boot options

Unfortunately, on this mini PC, installing a Linux distribution does not automatically set its GRUB entry as the default. If you had a previous installation, its GRUB will still be used. If, as in this example, you remove previous distributions, you get an error when booting from GRUB because it cannot find anything.

We have to fix it in the UEFI settings: when booting, press F7 to access the boot menu.

You see that “cachyos” is the last one.

Let’s select “Enter Setup”:

“Fixed Boot Order Priorities” does not let you change the order, only see it:

We must use “UEFI NVME Drive BBS Priorieties”:

Select the first option:

Select the entry that must become the first option (yes, quite confusing!):

And now we’re done:

Now, we finally get the CachyOS GRUB menu!

Stay tuned for the upcoming blog post on the installed system!