First steps to take after installing Fedora linux

Fedora is great distro to get into linux. It is backed by the company Red Hat and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a distro that is both stable and ships current software. Once you install the distro, there are some steps you should take to provide an optimal experience.

Speed Up DNF

By default, dnf isn’t configured for speed. It is quite slow out of the box but there are some things we can do to speed it up. Open the terminal application and type sudo nano /etc/dnf/dnf.conf. This will bring up a prompt asking for your password(don’t worry if nothing shows up while you’re typing, that’s supposed to happen). Once you enter your password, you will be put into a text editor which should show something like this:

[main]
gpgcheck=1
installonly_limit=3
clean_requirements_on_remove=True
best=False
skip_if_unavailable=True

Using your arrow keys, navigate to the bottom of the file and create a new line. On that new line, paste in the following:

fastestmirror=True
max_parallel_downloads=10
defaultyes=True
keepcache=True

You might want to change the number of max parallel downloads based on your internet speed. I do 10 since my internet is very good but if your internet is worse, you might want to turn it down to 5 or 3. Lets explain what each of these new lines do:

Now that you have added these changes. Do the following keyboard shortcuts:

The file is now saved and dnf is now configured to be faster. If you ever want to clear the cache run this: sudo dnf clean all

Update the system

Now that dnf is configured for speed run the command: sudo dnf upgrade. You may need to type your password in. It will take some extra time on first usage since it needs to determine the fastest mirror. Once the fastest mirror is determined, it will bring you to a screen where it shows all the packages that need to be updated. Press enter and allow it to upgrade everything. Once it is upgraded, type in: sudo reboot. This will trigger a restart of the computer and once you are back up, it will be fully up to date.

Add rpmfusion repositories

Fedora ships with only open source software in all their default repositories. However, we may want some proprietery software on our systems. This is where rpmfusion comes in handy. It was created to allow access to a lot of things that Fedora doesn’t ship in their repositories. Rpmfusion can be enabled very easily. Go to their website and follow the instructions for the installing free and nonfree repositories. Make sure to select the one for your version of Fedora. It will typically involve downloading an rpm file and opening it. Make sure that after installing these, you run sudo dnf groupupdate core

Install media codecs

Media codecs allow you to be able to watch videos. Certain media codecs aren’t installed by default. To install media codecs, just run sudo dnf install ffmpeg. After the command is done, you should have all required media codecs installed.

Install nvidia driver for nvidia users

If you are using a AMD or Intel GPU, then you can skip this step. Otherwise, head to the Software app and open it. Scroll to the bottom and click on Hardware Drivers. Select the nvidia driver and install. Restart your computer and you are done.

Enable full flathub support

While the dnf repositories installed have a lot of software, they don’t have everything. One place to get more software is Flathub. Flathub is like the app store for linux. When you are there, click quick setup and do the steps for fedora.

Conclusion

Now that you have Fedora set up, you are ready to start using your computer.

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