cachyos

name	cachyos
description	CachyOS bootstrap VM (kind:vm cachyos-vm) — source.kind: bootstrap via cachyos-pacstrap-builder + pacstrap, btrfs rootfs, uefi-insecure. Plus the disposable check-cachyos-vm deploy. Lives in the overthinkos/cachyos submodule. MUST be invoked before editing cachyos-vm or its check bed.

cachyos (VM)

source.kind: bootstrap VM that builds a CachyOS rootfs from scratch via pacstrap (using /charly-distros:cachyos-pacstrap-builder), then boots it under libvirt/QEMU.

The cachyos-vm entity and its check-cachyos-vm disposable test bed live in the overthinkos/cachyos repo (git submodule at box/cachyos), all in that repo's unified charly.yml. The bed is a disposable: true deploy (a check bed is just a deploy carrying disposable: true — there is no separate bed kind), driven by charly check run check-cachyos-vm. Drive the VM lifecycle from the submodule: charly -C box/cachyos vm build cachyos-vm + charly -C box/cachyos vm create cachyos-vm (or charly --repo overthinkos/cachyos …).

VM Configuration (from box/cachyos/charly.yml)

Setting	Value
Source	kind: bootstrap, builder: pacstrap, builder_image: cachyos-pacstrap-builder
Distro	cachyos
rootfs	btrfs
Disk / RAM / CPU	25G / 4G / 2
Machine / firmware	q35 / uefi-insecure
Network	user mode
SSH	user cachy, port 12226, key_source generate

The cachyos distro config (base packages, keyring, mirrors, repos) comes from the embedded distro: cachyos build vocabulary baked into the charly binary (charly/charly.yml), merged in by the unified loader.

Check bed

check-cachyos-vm is a disposable: true deploy (vm: {from: cachyos-vm, disposable: true}), so charly -C box/cachyos check run check-cachyos-vm runs the full R10 sequence unattended (the equivalent charly update check-cachyos-vm rebuild also works, since the deploy is folded into the Bundle map).

check-cachyos-gpu-vm is the full KDE GPU workstation bed — it mirrors the operator cachyos-gpu workstation's dual-desktop config and is the acceptance gate for migrating it. A cachyos-gpu-vm guest (bootstrap VM, UEFI, backend: libvirt, podman) receives a physical NVIDIA GPU via a VFIO <hostdev> and runs BOTH (a) a bare-metal KDE Plasma SDDM seat as in-guest layers, AND (b) a nested selkies-kde-nvidia streaming pod (real NVENC). It applies the nvidia toolkit + the locally-vendored nvidia-driver kernel layer (whose reboot: true reboots the guest mid-deploy so the open module loads on a clean boot and the boot-time nvidia-ctk cdi generate writes /etc/cdi/nvidia.yaml), then the vm lifecycle hook's PostApply (deployNestedPodsInGuest) host-builds selkies-kde-nvidia, charly vm cp-box --rootlesss it into the guest user's podman as localhost/charly-selkies-kde:latest, and runs the guest's own project-free charly bundle from-box localhost/charly-selkies-kde:latest selkies-kde — a PERSISTENT in-guest --user quadlet (GPU device auto-detected; loginctl enable-linger so it survives the guest reboot the fresh-rebuild leg recreates). Deploy-scope checks run in-guest over SSH: the quadlet is active + lingering, the stream answers on https://localhost:3000 (an in-guest curl, since the pod publishes :3000 only on the guest), and the nvidia encoder is queryable. The committed cachyos-gpu-vm is portable — it carries NO hostdev block (a PCI address is host-specific); generate one with charly vm gpu list and add it locally before a live GPU run. The GPU-gated checks pass with an N/A note when no card is passed through, so the bed runs anywhere. This is the R10 gate for the nested-pod-in-VM capability (/charly-internals:vm-deploy-target). See /charly-vm:vm "GPU passthrough", /charly-distros:cuda.

pacstrap path

charly vm build cachyos-vm builds a bootable disk end-to-end. The vm_bootstrap.go path uses the same renderPacstrapExtraConf helper as the image path, which emits the per-repo SigLevel (required for GPGME) and an [options] Architecture = x86_64 x86_64_v3 directive (so linux-cachyos passes the architecture check).

pacstrap installs linux-cachyos (x86_64_v3), mkinitcpio generates the initramfs (its autodetect hook warns in the chroot and falls back to all-modules — non-fatal), and a bootable disk.qcow2 (~3.5 GB) + cloud-init seed.iso are written. The Docker-Hub /charly-distros:cachyos container base remains the faster path when you don't need a VM disk.

Cross-References

• /charly-distros:cachyos-pacstrap-builder — the builder image this VM uses
• /charly-distros:cachyos-pacstrap — the container equivalent of this bootstrap path
• /charly-vm:arch — the canonical cloud_image VM (BIOS/virtio-gpu/sizing rationale)
• /charly-vm:vm — VM lifecycle commands + BIOS/UEFI matrix
• /charly-vm:vms-catalog — VmSpec authoring reference

When to Use This Skill

MUST be invoked when editing cachyos-vm or its check bed, or authoring a CachyOS VM. Invoke BEFORE reading source code or launching Explore agents.