A Simple Fedora Post-Install Guide

This guide contains some commands to help set up Fedora Linux with some essential necessities and enhancements. I mainly wrote this guide for my own convenience as a quick reference guide¹ to set up a machine, and maybe you’ll find it useful too.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or other feedback, do let me know!

Preamble

• This guide is provided with no warranty. Always exercise caution when running commands, especially anything that requires sudo, and especially anything you find on a random guide on the Internet – this one is no exception.

• This guide should work for Fedora 41. I may update this guide if and when crucial things change.

  • Note the Published or Updated fields at the top of this page. If it’s been a while since the last update (more than 6 months), you should look through the source links in each section for more up-to-date instructions.

• You will need Internet access on your Fedora installation. If you don’t have Internet access, see Appendix/No Internet access.

• This guide is not intended for:

  • Fedora remixes or derivatives, such as Nobara, Ultramarine, QubesOS, Red Star OS, etc., nor
  • immutable versions of Fedora Linux or any derivatives, such as Silverblue, Kinoite, Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora, etc.

• This guide assumes you’re following along right after you’ve been first dropped into your desktop environment following a fresh install.

• Most commands will have comments (beginning with a hash # character) to explain their purpose. You may copy the command with or without the comments, the shell will ignore these comments anyway.

Repositories

System update

Before we begin, it is important we do a full system upgrade and ensure we’re on the latest versions of packages. This is to avoid dependency issues, and also because it’s just good practice.

# Upgrades all system packages, and also reload all repository caches.
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

🔁 Restart your computer after finishing this step.

RPM Fusion

RPM Fusion is a repository of packages that aren’t shipped with Fedora by default. It contains many drivers, multimedia codecs, and some additional software that we will need. We will be installing both the free and nonfree repositories.

# Install RPM Fusion free and nonfree repositories for the current Fedora
# release.
PREFIX="https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org"
RELEASE=$(rpm -E %fedora)
sudo dnf install \
    $PREFIX/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$RELEASE.noarch.rpm \
    $PREFIX/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$RELEASE.noarch.rpm

# Enable the Cisco openh264 repositories for better compatibility with
# multimedia packages.
sudo dnf config-manager setopt fedora-cisco-openh264.enabled=1

# Update AppStream data to allow installing RPM Fusion packages from
# graphical stores (e.g. Discover, GNOME Software).
sudo dnf update @core

Source: RPM Fusion

Flathub

By default, Fedora ships its own Flatpak remote, which contains only a subset of applications found on the main Flathub remote. We can install the full Flathub remote with this command:

# Install the Flathub remote.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub \
    https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Source: Flathub

You can optionally also remove the existing Fedora remote, which can be useful to avoid duplicate listings and to speed up searching/querying (the Fedora Flatpak remotes can be slow at times.)

# Remove the Fedora Flatpak remote, leaving only Flathub.
flatpak remote-delete fedora

Terra

Terra is another repository that contains some extra packages. It’s not as essential as RPM Fusion, but it contains some applications that you may find useful to have available, such as VSCodium and Ghostty,

# Install Terra repositories for the current Fedora release.
dnf install --nogpgcheck --repofrompath \
    'terra,https://repos.fyralabs.com/terra$releasever' terra-release

Source: Terra

Hardware

Broadcom wireless cards

To check if you have any Broadcom cards, run this command:

# List all internal hardware devices, and filter only for lines
# mentioning "Broadcom".
lspci | grep Broadcom

ℹ️ If the command does not output any lines, you can skip this section.

If the command outputs lines with any instance of the word “Broadcom” highlighted, install the Broadcom drivers:

Running Secure Boot? See the Secure Boot appendix.

# Install the Broadcom wireless drivers.
sudo dnf install broadcom-wl

🔁 Restart your computer after running this command.

Video codecs

Install additional video codecs to allow playback and streaming of common multimedia formats.

# Replace the stock FFmpeg libraries with the full FFmpeg libraries with
# RPM Fusion.
sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing

# Install additional codecs for GStreamer applications.
sudo dnf update @multimedia \
    --setopt="install_weak_deps=False" \
    --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin

🔁 Restart your computer after running this command.

Source: RPM Fusion

Intel: hardware-accelerated video

If you are running on Intel graphics (either HD integrated graphics or Arc), you should install the media codecs for hardware-accelerated video playback.

There are two drivers available:

• intel-media-driver - newer; compatible with Broadwell (2014) or later, and
• libva-intel-driver - older; compatible with GMA-4500 (2007) up to Coffee Lake (2017).

If there is overlap, try intel-media-driver first.

# Install the newer Intel media drivers (Broadwell and later)
sudo dnf install intel-media-driver

# Install the older Intel media drivers (GMA-2500 - Coffee Lake)
sudo dnf install libva-intel-driver

🔁 Restart your computer after running this command.

Sources: RPM Fusion, ArchWiki

AMD: hardware-accelerated video

For AMD GPUs, hardware-accelerated video also requires additional packages.

# Replace the stock Mesa video acceleration drivers with the full versions.
sudo dnf swap mesa-va-drivers mesa-va-drivers-freeworld
sudo dnf swap mesa-vdpau-drivers mesa-vdpau-drivers-freeworld

# Same thing, but for 32-bit compatibility, recommended for Steam.
# (you can skip this if you don't need it)
sudo dnf swap mesa-va-drivers.i686 mesa-va-drivers-freeworld.i686
sudo dnf swap mesa-vdpau-drivers.i686 mesa-vdpau-drivers-freeworld.i686

NVIDIA

RPM Fusion has extensive documentation on installing NVIDIA drivers, as well as setting up CUDA and NVENC.

• RPM Fusion - NVIDIA
• RPM Fusion - CUDA
• RPM Fusion - Multimedia, NVENC

Extras

These are some optional goodies you may want to set up, but aren’t completely necessary.

Homebrew

Homebrew is a package manager for Linux and macOS. This allows you to install many command-line utilities that Fedora, Terra, nor RPM Fusion ship.

Note that Homebrew casks are not supported on Linux.

• Install Homebrew

Enabling legacy certificate to connect to enterprise/university networks

If you are unable to connect to your workplace or university Wi-Fi network on Fedora (including Eduroam), then you may need to enable some legacy certificates on your network that may be required to connect to the network.

Enabling these certificates can be done with one command:

# Enable legacy certificates required for connecting to some enterprise
# networks.
sudo update-crypto-policies --set LEGACY

🔁 Restart your computer after running this command.

Japanese IME for KDE Plasma Spin (Fcitx5/Mozc)

To type in Japanese on KDE Plasma using Fcitx5 and Mozc, first install the required packages:

# Install Fcitx5, Mozc, and the linking packages.
sudo dnf install fcitx5 mozc fcitx5-mozc

Now we need to register Fcitx5 to run on startup and act as the virtual keyboard manager.

1. Open the System Settings app.
2. Under Input and Output, select Keyboard and then Virtual Keyboard
3. On the sidebar, select Fcitx 5 Wayland Launcher or Fcitx 5, depending on if you’re using the X or Wayland session.
4. On the sidebar, return to the top-level settings menu, then scroll down to System and select Autostart
5. Select Add New on the top-right corner, then Application… and find and select Fcitx 5 from the dialog (it should be under System or Utilities, or you can just search for it.)

🔁 Logout and login again to enable the IME.

6. After logging in, you should see an en symbol (or something else representing your current keyboard language) in the system tray. Right-click it and select Configure.
7. Find or search for Mozc in the right box, and double click it to add it to the left box. Then, click Apply.

You should now be able to type in Japanese. Press Meta + Space to switch between Japanese and your default layout. This shortcut can be changed in the Global Settings tab in the configuration window.

GNOME extensions

If you’re using GNOME as your desktop environment, you may consider installing these extensions for a more complete and enhanced experience. These extensions are well-maintained and available from Fedora repositories, and are less likely to break between major GNOME releases.

You can install any of the following extensions with sudo dnf install <insert-package-name-here>.

• gnome-shell-extension-appindicator: System tray icons for apps that need them.
• gnome-shell-extension-appmenu-is-back: The app menu from GNOME 44 and earlier.
• gnome-shell-extension-auto-move-windows: Assign different apps to workspaces on launch.
• gnome-shell-extension-caffeine: Toggle to temporarily disable automatic sleep and display blanking.
• gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-dock: Turn the dash into a dock, plus some extra customisation options.
• gnome-shell-extension-drive-menu: Manage connected storage drives from the panel.
• gnome-shell-extension-forge: Advanced auto-tiling, similar to Pop Shell or COSMIC’s tiling features.
• gnome-shell-extension-gsconnect: KDE Connect compatibility with GNOME:
  • This may also require installing openssl.
• gnome-shell-extension-just-perfection: Fine-tune GNOME behaviour, such as animations and hiding certain components.

🔁 You may need to logout and login again to use these extensions.

To manage GNOME extensions, you can install Extension Manager from Flathub:

# Install Extension Manager from Flathub.
flatpak install com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager 

You can find more extensions by running dnf search gnome-shell-extension, or on the GNOME Shell Extensions website.

Appendix

Secure Boot

Installing some custom drivers, such as for NVIDIA and Broadcom devices, require some modifications to the kernel that can cause issues with Secure Boot. This can result in these drivers not loading, or your Fedora installation to be unable to boot.

• You can follow these instructions on the RPM Fusion knowledge base to self-sign your kernel after driver installs.

• Alternatively, you can disable Secure Boot in your system’s UEFI menu if you have access.

NOTE: You should not disable Secure Boot if you are dual-booting with Windows, as this may cause issues with Windows Update or BitLocker.

No Internet access

Depending on your hardware, you may not be able to use certain network devices by default due to missing drivers. This can occur namely with Broadcom wireless cards.

This guide will show you how to get Broadcom Wi-Fi working, but in the meantime, you can try:

• running an wired Ethernet connection to your computer, if possible, or
• using USB tethering with an Android device to share its Wi-Fi connection to your computer.

After you’ve installed the necessary drivers and you can confirm that the Wi-Fi card is working properly, you can disconnect your Android device or ethernet cable and proceed with Wi-Fi if you want.