There is an updated version of this guide for newer Fedora versions.

Fedora 24 Installation and Configuration

Note: This guide may be outdated. See a newer version available on this website.

This page covers basic steps taken during and after the clean installation of Fedora GNU/Linux operating system on your computer. In this guide the installed Fedora version is 24 and the computer is 64-bit UEFI based machine. Do not try any of the following commands if you don't know what they mean, especially those requiring sudo. You proceed at your own risk.

Created
June 2016
Updated
December 22, 2016

Before Installation

Download the installation image from https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download, check SHA checksum and follow their instructions to successfully create an installation drive from the image. I usually use the dd tool which is destructive for data on the target drive.

$ sudo dd if="Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso" of="/dev/DRIVE"

If you want to install Fedora as the secondary operating system (dual boot), don't forget to back up the contents of /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/ directory on your hard drive. It contains default boot files which may be overwritten during Fedora installation.

Installation

The installation is pretty straightforward. During partitioning, you may need to leave some free space for SSD over provisioning. Note: On my Samsung 840 Evo it looks like partition reserved space is used instead of free space though.

After Installation

These are my recommended steps to do after the clean installation. Neither of them is required for Fedora to work, but they can simplify your life.

Update

Install all available updates and reboot.

$ sudo dnf upgrade
$ sudo reboot

Additional Packages

This is a list of some of the useful packages. This does not contain regular apps like GIMP or Audacity (these apps have their own dedicated page on this website) but small system packages.

Useful package groups

To list available package groups, use the following command.

$ sudo dnf group list

The following command shows all possible groups.

$ sudo dnf group list -v hidden

I found the following package group useful for C/C++ programming and debugging.

$ sudo dnf group install 'C Development Tools and Libraries'

If you want to use virtualization, see Fedora wiki.

Additional Repositories

Because Fedora doesn't ship with any non-free software, RPM Fusion repository provides it instead. It might be useful if you want to install a non-free piece of software or play music or a movie encoded in a proprietary non-free format, such as MP3.

Enable RPM Fusion repos, both free and non-free. The up-to-date guide is on the RPM Fusion website. For short, type the following command.

$ sudo dnf install http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Codecs

Fedora doesn't ship with non-free software which includes many multimedia codecs. These are instructions to install the most important codecs for usual video and audio playback.

Install codecs (Modified version of RPM Fusion's FAQ, which looks a bit outdated).

# dnf install gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg
# dnf install xine-lib-extras

Current players use gstreamer1 codecs instead.

# dnf install gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld
# dnf install gstreamer1-libav gstreamer1-vaapi

There are also some other useful codecs, not required for usual media playback.

# dnf install gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad-nonfree gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras gstreamer-plugin-crystalhd gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-extras gstreamer-plugins-bad-extras

Better font rendering

Font rendering on Fedora has always looked really ugly because Fedora wants to be as free as possible and does not implement patented technologies, such as subpixel rendering. These are the steps to make the fonts look more beautiful.

The first step is to open gnome-tweak-tool and set font antialiasing to Slight and RGBA. This affects fonts in Gnome.

System-wide font configuration files are located in /etc/fonts directory. Mostly there are links to preconfigured configuration files in /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/. We want to link some files for LCD subpixel rendering.

$ sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d
$ sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d
$ sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d

Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution is known for its excellent font rendering, so we can use their configuration files. I have copied all (enabled) config files from Ubuntu 15.10 and the archive can be downloaded here. Copy all missing 10-*.conf configuration files to your /etc/fonts/conf.d. Now the fonts should be rendered much better, even in Google Chrome.

RPM Fusion's freetype-freeworld package can be installed for even better result. This version is compiled with the patented subpixel rendering enabled.

$ sudo dnf install freetype-freeworld

Tips and Tricks

Some tips and hardware specific problems are mentioned here.

TRIM Your SSD

Run one of the following commands from time to time to let your SSD know about unused file system space. The first command trims / partition, the second trims all trimmable partitions on the drive.

$ sudo fstrim -v /
$ sudo fstrim -a -v

Intel HD3000 Optimus Laptop

If you happen to have a 2011 laptop with Intel HD graphics, you may see multiple mouse cursors and strange graphics. To solve this, disable secondary bogus monitor. It can be done either in GNOME or globally with VIDEO=VGA-2:d GRUB parameter.

Disable suspend on lid close

To stop your laptop go into sleep mode every time you close the lid, you can add HandleLidSwitch=ignore in /etc/systemd/logind.conf and reboot. You may need to change gnome-tweak-tool's option too.

Disable Automount and Gnome Software Updates

Here we are going to use dconf-editor. I don't like having all my unmounted drives remounted when I leave the computer for a long time enough to get a "enter password" prompt when I return. And using Gnome's Software? If it sometimes finally installs anything, it keeps all dependencies installed when you need to remove it later. DNF is a much better choice.

Set all values to False in the following dconf locations. Disable Gnome Software updates: /org/gnome/software/download-updates, and the automount feature here: /org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount and here: /org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open.