Fedora 44 Post Install Guide

Things to do after installing Fedora 44

RPM Fusion

• Fedora has disabled the repositories for a lot of free and non-free .rpm packages by default. Follow this if you want to use non-free software like Steam, Discord and some multimedia codecs etc. As a general rule of thumb it is advised to do this to get access to many mainstream useful programs.
• Enable third party repositories by pasting the following into the terminal:
• sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
• also while you're at it, install app-stream metadata by:
• sudo dnf group upgrade core
• sudo dnf4 group install core

Update

• Go into the software center and click on update. Alternatively, you can do:
• sudo dnf -y update
• Reboot

Firmware

• If your system supports firmware update delivery through lvfs, update your device firmware by:

fwupdmgr refresh --force
fwupdmgr get-devices # Lists devices with available updates.
fwupdmgr get-updates # Fetches list of available updates.
fwupdmgr update

Flatpak

• Fedora doesn't include all non-free flatpaks by default. In-case you forgot to check the "Enable Third Party Repositories" option on initial boot, the command below enables access to all the flathub flatpaks.
• flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

AppImage

• For Appimage support install fuse:
• sudo dnf install fuse-libs
• You can also install an AppImage manager like Gearlever for neater management. To do so, run the following command:
• flatpak install it.mijorus.gearlever

NVIDIA Drivers

• sudo dnf update #To make sure you're on the latest kernel and then reboot.
• Check if you have Secure Boot enabled with: mokutil --sb-state. If enabled, follow number 1 if not then number 2

Battery Life (Deprecated)

• Follow this if you have a Laptop and are facing sub optimal battery backup.
• power-profiles-daemon which come pre-configured on fedora works well on a great majority of systems but still in case you're facing sub-optimal battery backup you try installing tlp by:
• sudo dnf install tlp tlp-rdw
• and mask power-profiles-daemon by:
• sudo systemctl mask power-profiles-daemon
• Also install powertop by:
• sudo dnf install powertop
• sudo powertop --auto-tune
• Edit: Fedora comes preinstalled with Tuned which works well on its own now and all the aforementioned changes are now unnecessary. Just follow HW video acceleration for better battery backup.

Media Codecs

• Install these to get proper multimedia playback.

sudo dnf4 group install multimedia
sudo dnf swap 'ffmpeg-free' 'ffmpeg' --allowerasing # Switch to full FFMPEG.
sudo dnf update @multimedia --setopt="install_weak_deps=False" --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin # Installs gstreamer components. Required if you use Gnome Videos and other dependent applications.
sudo dnf group install -y sound-and-video # Installs useful Sound and Video complementary packages.

H/W Video Acceleration

• Helps decrease load on the CPU when watching videos online by alloting the rendering to the dGPU/iGPU. Quite helpful in increasing battery backup on laptops.

H/W Video Decoding with VA-API

• sudo dnf install ffmpeg-libs libva libva-utils

sudo dnf install mesa-va-drivers-freeworld
sudo dnf install mesa-va-drivers-freeworld.i686

OpenH264 for Firefox

• sudo dnf install -y openh264 gstreamer1-plugin-openh264 mozilla-openh264
• sudo dnf config-manager setopt fedora-cisco-openh264.enabled=1
• After this enable the OpenH264 Plugin in Firefox's settings.

Set Hostname

• hostnamectl set-hostname YOUR_HOSTNAME

Default Firefox start page

• The tweak below will make the start page the default firefox start page instead of this, (Note: If you're using Fedora Silverblue and not stock Fedora then click here)
• sudo rm -f /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/defaults/preferences/firefox-redhat-default-prefs.js

Custom DNS Servers

• For people that want to setup custom DNS servers for better privacy

sudo mkdir -p '/etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d' && sudo -e '/etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/99-dns-over-tls.conf'

[Resolve]
DNS=1.1.1.2#security.cloudflare-dns.com 1.0.0.2#security.cloudflare-dns.com 2606:4700:4700::1112#security.cloudflare-dns.com 2606:4700:4700::1002#security.cloudflare-dns.com
DNSOverTLS=yes
Domains=~.

Set UTC Time

• Used to counter time inconsistencies in dual boot systems
• sudo timedatectl set-local-rtc '0'

Optimizations

• The tips below can allow you to squeeze out a little bit more performance from your system.

Disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

• Disabling it can decrease the boot time by at least ~15s-20s:
• sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

Disable Gnome Software from Startup Apps

• Gnome software autostarts on boot even though it is not required on every boot, this takes at least 100MB of RAM upto 900MB (as reported anecdotically). Unless you want it to do search for updates in the background or give you application suggestions in GNOME overview, you can stop it from autostarting by:
• mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
• cp /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Software.desktop ~/.config/autostart/
• echo "X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false" >> ~/.config/autostart/org.gnome.Software.desktop
• GNOME Software is also triggered in the background whenever you search in the GNOME overview. To prevent this, disable it as a search provider:
• dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/search-providers/disabled "['org.gnome.Software.desktop']"

Gnome Extensions [Optional]

• Suggestions for good utilities to extend the capabilities of your system
• Don't install these if you are using a different spin of Fedora.
• Pop Shell - run sudo dnf install -y gnome-shell-extension-pop-shell xprop to install it.
• GSconnect - run sudo dnf install nautilus-python for full support. then sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=kdeconnect
• Gesture Improvements
• Quick Settings Tweaker
• User Themes
• Compiz Windows Effect
• Just Perfection
• Rounded Windows Corners
• Dash to Dock
• Quick Settings Tweaker
• Blur My Shell
• Bluetooth Quick Connect
• App Indicator Support
• Clipboard Indicator
• Legacy (GTK3) Theme Scheme Auto Switcher
• Caffeine
• Vitals
• Wireless HID
• Logo Menu
• Space Bar

Apps [Optional]

• Packages for Rar and 7z compressed files support: sudo dnf install -y unzip p7zip p7zip-plugins unrar
• These are Some Packages that I use and would recommend:

7zip
Amberol
Blanket
Builder
Brave 
Blender
Discord
Drawing
Deja Dup Backups
Endeavour 
Easyeffects
Extension Manager
Flatseal
Foliate
Footage
GIMP
Gnome Tweaks
Gradience
Handbrake
Iotas
Joplin
Khronos
Krita
Logseq
lm_sensors
Onlyoffice
Overskride
Parabolic
Pcloud
PDF Arranger
Planify
Pika backup 
Snapshot
Solanum
Sound Recorder
Tangram
Transmission
Ulauncher
Upscaler
Video Trimmer
VS Codium
yt-dlp

Theming [Optional]

GTK Themes

• Don't install these if you are using a different spin of Fedora.
• https://github.com/lassekongo83/adw-gtk3
• https://github.com/vinceliuice/Colloid-gtk-theme
• https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic
• https://github.com/vinceliuice/Orchis-theme
• https://github.com/vinceliuice/Graphite-gtk-theme

Use themes in Flatpaks

• sudo flatpak override --filesystem=$HOME/.themes
• sudo flatpak override --env=GTK_THEME=my-theme

Icon Packs

• https://github.com/vinceliuice/Tela-icon-theme
• https://github.com/vinceliuice/Colloid-gtk-theme/tree/main/icon-theme

Wallpaper

• https://github.com/manishprivet/dynamic-gnome-wallpapers

Firefox Theme

• Install Firefox Gnome theme by: curl -s -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rafaelmardojai/firefox-gnome-theme/master/scripts/install-by-curl.sh | bash

Starship (terminal theme)

• Configure starship to make your terminal look good (refer https://starship.rs)

Grub Theme

• https://github.com/vinceliuice/grub2-themes