Make Your Arch Linux Even Better Than Before

Overview

Before we go any further, this post will help you make your Linux (specifically Arch Linux) better than before. I will guide you through all the essential steps to level up your system.

Requirements

We need, of course a Linux system (Arch Linux recommended since its highly-customizable, and reliable) and also all of these things below:

• fastfetch A system fetch information tools.
• fish A modern, fast and lightweight shells.
• starship A blazingly fast shell prompt provider.
• zoxide A hundred times better drop-in modern replacement for cd.
• eza A better and beautiful-looking alternative for ls

Question

"What makes a Linux system good in terms of performance, and usability?" the answer is KERNEL you may have a good device, you may have a good GPUs, CPUs, but you cant maximize its potential without the right KERNEL

There are lots of options for kernels to choose from, like linux-zen, linux-cachyos and etc. Personally, i choose linux-cachyos over any Linux kernels available out there. But, WHY?.

Because linux-cachyos isn't just another kernel with a fancy name. It’s a performance-first powerhouse optimized from the ground up. Most stock kernels are built to support as many ancient and modern CPUs as possible, meaning they use generic configurations. CachyOS takes the opposite approach. It compiles the kernel with advanced CPU-specific optimizations (like march-native and x86-64-v3/v4 support) and uses cutting-edge schedulers like BORE (Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer).

The result? Blazingly fast responsiveness, lower latency, and massive performance gains under heavy workloads—whether you're compiling code, gaming, or just multitasking like a madman. Now that we have the heart of the system figured out, let's look at the actual tools that will make your daily terminal usage a 10/10 experience.

1. Ditching the Stock Kernel for CachyOS

If you are running Arch, you don't need to install the whole CachyOS distro to get the benefits. You can just add their repository and install the kernel directly. Run these commands to add the CachyOS repository:

curl https://repo.cachyos.org/cachyos-repo.sh | sudo bash

Once the repo is added, install the kernel and its headers:

sudo pacman -S linux-cachyos linux-cachyos-headers

Note: Don't forget to update your bootloader (like GRUB or systemd-boot) and reboot into your shiny new kernel!

2. Setting Up the Ultimate Shell Experience

The default bash shell gets the job done, but we are here to make things better. We're going to combine fish, starship, and zoxide to create an unbeatable terminal workflow.

Step 1: Install the Tools

Let's grab everything we need in one go using pacman:

sudo pacman -S fish starship zoxide eza fastfetch

Step 2: Configure Fish & Starship

First, let's make fish your default shell so you don't have to type fish every time you open a terminal:

chsh -s $(which fish)

Next, let's initialize starship to give your prompt a beautiful, modern look. Create or edit your fish config file:

mkdir -p ~/.config/fish
nano ~/.config/fish/config.fish

Add this line to initialize your prompt:

starship init fish | source

3. Modern CLI Replacements (The Good Stuff)

Now let's supercharge your daily commands. We are going to replace cd with zoxide and ls with eza. Open your ~/.config/fish/config.fish again and add these interactive initializations and aliases:

# Initialize Zoxide (The cd replacement)
zoxide init fish | source

# Replace ls with eza for beautiful icons and grids
alias ls="eza --icons=always --git"
alias la="eza --icons=always --git -a"
alias ll="eza --icons=always --git -l"
alias lt="eza --icons=always --git --tree"

# Auto-run fastfetch on terminal startup because why not?
clear && fastfetch

The Verdict

Open a new terminal window. You’ll be greeted instantly by fastfetch showing off your linux-cachyos kernel.

When you want to navigate your directories, forget typing cd path/to/very/deep/folder. Just type z deep and zoxide will instantly jump there based on your history. Want to see what's inside? Type ls and admire the clean, color-coded, icon-rich output of eza.

You now have a system that doesn't just benchmarks higher because of a highly-optimized kernel, but also feels instantly responsive every time you touch the keyboard.