- 1. Introduction
- 2. Installation
- 3. Shells
- 4. DNF & Repositories
- 5. My Fedora KDE settings & tweaks
- 6. Apps & Packages I'd Recommend
- 7. Additional Software Installers
- 8. Other System Topics
- 9. SELinux
- 10. Grub
- 11. Plymouth
- 12. Upgrades and Beta versions
- 13. Problems & Fixes
- 14. Ham Radio
I've run Fedora since Fedora 9. It's my choice for a Linux OS for a number of reasons. When I first started with Linux my college used Scientific Linux, based on CentOS which itself is based on RedHat. Other students used Ubuntu, but I found it difficult to use since the development tools & other things don't match. Think Ubuntu's Build Essentials vs Fedora's Development Tools group. Everything I did on my machine matched what was used on the servers.
Also, I just like the way Fedora does things. It may seem more complicated that Ubuntu but it gave me the opportunity to learn much more about what's happening inside. Linus Torvalis uses Fedora. The prosecution rests. 😎
I've spent a lot of time just playing with Fedora and KDE, learning how it works. KDE is very configurable. You can pretty much set it up however you want.
As I find more I'll add it. I hope it helps you.
Fedora has decided to drop X11 support for Fedora 40 KDE. Linuxiac has a nice writeup on it with a link to the offical Fedora Wiki.
I've seen a few programs not install correctly because of QT5 vs QT6 conflicts. Also, some of the plasmoids I used in Fedora 39 are not available yet.
A much more serious problem is with VirtualBox. In full screen mode the VM will lock up under Wayland. The workaround is to disable the status bar at the bottom of the VM. Otherwise you can install X11 support and just run under X. That's what I did.
sudo dnf install plasma-workspace-x11
FYI: Even though the standard Fedora 40 KDE install targets Wayland, apps still have to be written for Wayland. Many are not. So Wayland starts an X server to handle those apps - XWayland.
The primary Fedora release comes with the GNOME desktop environment. Fedora also releases 'spins' and 'labs'. Spins are distros focused on a desktop environment; e.g. KDE, LXDE, i3. Spins can be found here. Fedora Labs are distros designed for a specific purpose. These include
- Astronomy
- Comp Neuro for computational modelling tools for neuroscience
- Design Suite for multimedia production & design
- Games
- Jam for music production
- Python Classroom
- Security Lab
- Robotics Suite
- Scientific
Fedora Magazine has a lot of good information. They'll post articles on how-tos and new apps to try.
- Download the Fedora KDE Spin https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/kde/
- Import Fedora's GPG key(s)
curl https://getfedora.org/static/fedora.gpg | gpg --import
- Verify the checksum is valid
gpg --verify-files CHECKSUM_FILENAME
- Verify the download's checksum matches
sha256sum -c CHECKSUM_FILE
Unless I'm installing Fedora in a VM I always encrypt the drive. I use the standard install options and leave the root user disabled. Obviously if you need a specific partition layout set it up here. I'd be wary of playing with it for the sake of playing with it. The Fedora engineers have done a great job of optimizing everything for the desktop and it would be very easy to optimize your system so it runs worse. (I did that once in FreeBSD and had to wipe the disk and start over). I used to make the swap partition larger but there was no need for it. Enlarge it if you want to be able to hibernate.
Fedora uses the Btvfs file system instead of Ext4. I'd leave it alone. There are discussions and/or arguments all over the web about the problems & benefits of Btvfs but like for partitioning, you're best just to leave it alone.
The Fedora installer looks different depending on what spin you're installing. For example, the KDE Spin has you setup the user account before installing while the standard Fedora installation (Gnome) has you creating the user after installing. I'm not sure why.
After installing Fedora you'll want to update everything before adding to your system. See the DNF section for more information.
sudo dnf update -y
The '-y' parameter suppresses the 'yes/no' prompts. It can be disabled in \etc\dnf\dnf.cfg by adding assume_yes=True but that's not a good idea. I only use -y for updates.
When you select encryption in the Fedora install, it is not full disk encryption. It leaves /boot unencrypted. That's why you only have to enter the password once, unlike OpenSUSE's full disk encryption where you have to enter it twice. Keep that in mind if you need a very secure system. You can manually configure that in the installer.
I use Zsh but still have Bash configured on my system. Zsh gives you a LOT of features over what Bash has. Read more at https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Intro/intro_toc.html
I also recommend Oh-My-Zsh. It adds lots of features that will make your life easier, along with themes. Check it out at https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh
To install Oh-My-Zsh
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
It will create ~/.oh-my-zsh/ in your home directory. Themes are in ~/.oh-my-zsh/themes.
Zsh left those zcompdump files all over my home directory. Open ./oh-my-zsh/oh-my-zsh.sh and look
for the line
ZSH_COMPDUMP="${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zcompdump-${SHORT_HOST}-${ZSH_VERSION}"
and change it to something like this. (I put mine in .config)
ZSH_COMPDUMP="${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.config/.zcompdump-${SHORT_HOST}-${ZSH_VERSION}"
If it doesn't work there could be a system .zshrc somewhere. I haven't seen it in Fedora but I've seen it in other distros. It's usually in /etc.
Oh-My-Zsh has many themes you can try out. I took a theme and modified it to. Other than using an installed theme that's probably the easiest route. Theme building can get complicated.
This page has a lot of information on zsh themes
My theme is based on the nanotech.zshtheme found in ~/.oh-my.zsh/themes.
bar1() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="117 "
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar2() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="073"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar3() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="033"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar4() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="026"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar5() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="021"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar6() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="020"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar7() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="019"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar8() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="018"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar9() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="017"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
bar10() {
BAR_FG="048"
BAR1_BG="016"
echo "%{$FG[$BAR_FG]%}%{$BG[$BAR1_BG]%} "
}
COLOR_BAR="$(bar1)$(bar2)$(bar3)$(bar4)$(bar5)$(bar6)$(bar7)$(bar8)$(bar9)$(bar10)"**
PROMPT='${COLOR_BAR}%d %F{green}%F{yellow}%f**'
RPROMPT='$(git_prompt_info) %F{green}%D{%L:%M}** '
ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_PREFIX="%B%F{green}"
ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_SUFFIX="%f"
ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_DIRTY=" %F{red}*%f"
ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_CLEAN=""
And looks like this on a black background.
Here's the prompt for my colored bar in Bash
# Definitions for the color variant bar in the prompt. Doesn't have anything for Git.
BAR1="\\[\e[48;5;117m\] "
BAR2="\\[\e[48;5;73m\] "
BAR3="\\[\e[48;5;33m\] "
BAR4="\\[\e[48;5;26m\] "
BAR5="\\[\e[48;5;21m\] "
BAR6="\\[\e[48;5;20m\] "
BAR7="\\[\e[48;5;19m\] "
BAR8="\\[\e[48;5;18m\] "
BAR9="\\[\e[48;5;17m\] "
BAR10="\\[\e[48;5;16m\] "
CLEAR="\\[\e[0m\]"
GREEN="\\[\e[1;32m\]"
YELLOW="\\[\e[1;33m\]"
PURPLE="\\[\e[1;35m\]"
# I removed the code to set the titlebar. I'm good w/it just saying 'Konsole' or whatever
PS1="${BAR1}${BAR2}${BAR3}${BAR4}${BAR5}${BAR6}${BAR7}${BAR8}${BAR9}${BAR10}${CLEAR}${YELLOW}\${PWD} ${GREEN}\$ ${CLEAR}"
and looks like this.
I switched to eza to replace ls. See https://github.com/eza-community/eza for more information. It formats things really well.
It's available in the standard Fedora repositories
sudo dnf install eza
And use it like this:
alias ls='eza -lao --group-directories-first --no-permissions --time-style "+%m/%d/%y %H:%M" --git'
Many of the switches are straight from ls but there are a few new ones.
-l : Long directory format
-a : All files & directories, including . and ..
-o : Octal permissions
--group-directories-first
--no-permissions : This one removes the standard wide permissions column
--time-style : Allows you to format the time & date column
--git : Adds the git status for each file
There's a very good man page on ArchLinux https://man.archlinux.org/man/eza_colors.5.en that documents how to set various colors. I changed two
export EZA_COLORS="di=33:da=36"
di sets the directory color
da sets the date color
There are many options for DNF from getting through proxies, security settings, and more. Look at the official Fedora DNF Reference, the Fedora DNF Quickdocs and the DNF GitHub page for more information.
I use three options for dnf, set in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf.
fastestmirror=1
deltarpm=true
max_parallel_downloads=10
The default setting for fastestmirror is off. I have read some people reported dnf actually running slower with this enabled. I haven't noticed anything but keep it in mind.
deltarpm=true allows dnf to save bandwidth by just downloading deltas instead of the entire package.
max_parallel_downloads=10 seems to give good performance.
I also use the -y parameter to suppress the 'Are you sure' messages when running an update.
sudo dnf -y update
You can set this in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf by using assumeyes=1 but I'd advise against it. I use -y for running updates but not to install individual packages so I can see what's actually getting installed.
For more information on configuring dnf see https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/5-dnf.conf/
You'll probably want to enable RPM Fusion. RPM Fusion is a repository that contains software that doesn't meet the Fedora licensing. The base Fedora distro is FOSS-Only.
It can be installed from here. https://rpmfusion.org
You can install it from your browser but I think it's easier to do it from the command line.
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
Fedora's repository files are located in /etc/yum.repos.d. This is a section of a .repo. There can be other sections, like for debug or source packages. These are usually disabled.
[fedora]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch
metalink=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=fedora-$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=1
countme=1
metadata_expire=7d
repo_gpgcheck=0
type=rpm
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$releasever-$basearch
skip_if_unavailable=False
Fedora's Repository Docs are here - https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/repositories/
To change what the repo looks like when running dnf change the 2nd line of the .repo file.
The entries will look like this
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch
You can change them to something like this so the repo names and architecture are in columns.
Fedora $releasever - $basearch
name=Fedora $releasever Updates - $basearch
Or remove the architecture altogether
Fedora $releasever
name=Fedora $releasever
If you want them in order, rename each repo file; e.g.
01-Fedora.repo
02-Fedora-updates.repo
to make it look like this
DNF can take a long to update itself because it downloads the repository data often. A discussion on the Fedora Project site suggested setting metadata_expire=2d in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf.
If you use the -q parameter (quiet) like in my install scripts it can look like the process hangs.
I noticed that not all repositories I installed had the metadata_expire set. I went through all my .repo files and set them all to 1d. That seems to have fixed it.
It appears that if you run dnf with the --refresh option it updates the repository data much faster than if you let Fedora handle it. I'm not sure why, it just seems that way.
There are a lot of dnf groups to choose from. See a list of groups by running
dnf group list
You can get the short names for each group - useful if you're using batch files to install them - by running dnf with the -v (verbose) option. It will also tell you the metadata date/time for each repo.
dnf -v group list
...
repo: using cache for: fedora
fedora: using metadata from Sat 05 Nov 2022 03:04:38 AM CDT.
repo: using cache for: updates
updates: using metadata from Fri 17 Mar 2023 11:49:31 PM CDT.
repo: using cache for: fedora-modular
...
...
Network Servers (network-server)
Neuron Modelling Simulators (neuron-modelling-simulators)
Office/Productivity (office)
Python Classroom (python-classroom)
Python Science (python-science)
Robotics (robotics-suite)
...
You can see what's in each group by running dnf group info GROUP_NAME. I generally install Development Tools and X Software Development but take a look at the ones that sound like they might fit your needs.
Groups are by far the easiest way to install the big desktop environments. For example, if for some unknown reason you wanted to install Gnome 😎 you'd use
sudo dnf -y group install @gnome-desktop
(IMHO Gnome looks like what you'd get if Crayola wrote a window manager) 😎
Smaller DE's are just installed as packages; e.g.
sudo dnf install fluxbox
Installing the appstream packages with dnf will enable showing apps from those repos in Discover.
appstream
appstream-qt
rpmfusion-free-appstream-data
rpmfusion-nonfree-appstream-data
Many of the options in dnf are actually plugins. You can install additional plugins, like the one you'll need for updating Fedora itself. See the plugins section at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/dnf/
If you want something other than what's in the Fedora & RPM Fusion repos, check out Fedora's COPR (COmmunity PRojects) repositories. They're user-created repos with their projects.
I use one COPR repo for one of my ham radio apps that isn't available in the Fedora or RPM repos.
There are nightly builds of software as well. Some of them are personal repos and say 'do not use'. Don't use them. 😎
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/
I haven't found a reliable way to restore all of my KDE settings when installing a new Fedora build. If you back up
./local & ./config that will take care of your personal settings but it will miss anything installed as the superuser.
All of that lives down in /usr. I'll keep trying until I get it right.
I used to use the KDE Partition Manager to do this but it wouldn't let me change the volume name while booted from that partition. For some reason GParted works just fine.
sudo dnf install gparted
- General - Uncheck 'Remember window size'
- Profiles - You can't edit the Default profile so create a new one. I use a 90x24 window size. Under Command change it to /bin/zsh. Konsole will use the shell specified here and not the default shell for your account
- Under Appearance, I use White on Black, then press Edit and change Background transparency to 10%. I also bump the font up a bit.
- Scrolling to Unlimited
Set your new profile to the default profile. Then I disable all of toolbars under the Konsole Settings menu and hide the Menubar. Make sure you exit the Konsole session or it may not save your profile properly.
I remove all of the 'search for' categories on the left. I also hide the boot partition. Then I add what I need to 'Places'.
I setup Dolphin like this: In Settings
- General/Behavior - Remember display style for each folder. This is handy for making the icons larger in folders with images, etc.
- General/Previews - Select the types you want displayed. I generally turn off everything but images & ebooks
- Context Menu - take everything out I don't need or want. There are additional services you can download.
To change the icons for file types, go into System Settings/Applications and create a file type for what you want. For example, I created a type Text/x-shell, set the icon, and added .bashrc, .zshrc, etc. as filename patterns.
When you set icons for folders it does not change the small icon in the Dolphin 'Places' section. I had to change those seperately. Right click on the icon and select 'Edit'. Then you can change that icon.
I set it to automatically log in. Yes, I know this is bad security but if you set the machine up with an encrypted drive you have to login with that before continuing. I don't worry about it on a VM either. Obviously if this machine might be at risk don't do this. I use mine for playing around and learning about Fedora.
If you want to unblur the SDDM wallpaper, edit Main.qml in /usr/share/sddm/themes/theme-name> and comment out the WallpaperFader section.
// WallpaperFader {<br>
// visible: config.type === "image"<br>
// anchors.fill: parent<br>
// state: loginScreenRoot.uiVisible ? "on" : "off"<br>
// source: wallpaper<br>
// mainStack: mainStack<br>
// footer: footer<br>
// clock: clock<br>
// }<br>
This can be set in KDE Preferences
This comes from Roj131 at https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php%3Ft=154087.html#. He creates a new theme but I just edited the one I was using. I went into /usr/share/plasma/look-and-feel/org.fedoraproject.fedora.desktop/contents/logout/Logout.qml and
- Commented out "property alias backgroundColor: backgroundRect.color"
- Commented out this section
// id: backgroundRect
// anchors.fill: parent
//use "black" because this is intended to look like a general darkening of the scene. a dark gray as normal background would just look too "washed out"
// color: root.isLightColor(Kirigami.Theme.backgroundColor) ? Kirigami.Theme.backgroundColor : "blue"
// opacity: 0.5
//}
- and added
id: backgroundImage
height: parent.height
width: parent.width
fillMode: Image.PreserveAspectCrop
source: "/home/dave/Setup/Wallpapers/Stargate/Gate.png"
}
- Icons - Gradient Light
- Colors - Nord Light
- Fonts - Comfortaa
- Plasma Style - Breeze AlphaBlack. It gives you the ability to have a transparent panel.
- Window Decorations - Breeze, but I change the window title so it's on the right.
- Plasma Splash Screen
The KDE Store has a complete list of Plasma widgets, fonts, colors, themes and other addons. They can also be found in Discover under Plasma Addons.
- Change menu to Application Menu. Right-click on any widget and it will give you a list of alternatives.
- Application Menu Settings, check 'Flatten submenus' and uncheck Recent categories
- Install Latte Seperator
- Install Latte Spacer
- Add another digital clock & set it to UTC
- Use QuickLaunches to group applications
- Use Latte Seperator to put nice seperators between the QuickLaunches, clocks, etc., and a Latte Spacer to put a little space between the last QuickLaunch and the Task Manager. It's available from "Get New Widgets" in the Add Widgets window.
Once it's done it looks like this
I started using a Desktop Effect called Energize B [Burn-My-Windows] available on the KDE Store [https://www.pling.com/p/1884311It]. It makes opening & closing windows look like they're beaming in and out with a transporter.
KDE is great if you want to show off 😎
I modified this theme and put my standard Stargate wallpaper in it so it matches my Grub, Plymouth, Login & Lock screens.
When you install a new splash screen from the Settings app it will put it in ~/.local/share/plasma/look-and-feel. I just went in and changed the wallpaper in contents/splash/images.
The icons for files like .bashrc and .zshrc will show up as plain text. You can't just change the icon from Dolphin. You need to go into KDE Settings/Applications/File Associations. There are a lot of them in there.
You can add one for .zshrc for example. Click Add and select the type category you want to use. For example, you could pick Application and create a new type called shell-config. Select the icon you want, and enter each filename pattern. I found it didn't work if you entered '*.zshrc' but '.zshrc' worked fine. Click apply, then open Dolphin. The icon for .zshrc should show with the new icon.
I went through and set application types for all sorts of things.
KDE, like most desktop environments will use multiple desktops. Set them up in Settings/Workspace Behavior/Virtual desktops.
There are some great transitions available where your desktops can slide over one another and that sort of thing. Those are in Desktop Effects.
A list of other applications can be found at https://apps.kde.org but these are the ones I use the most.
Yakuake is a great drop-down terminal. You hit a hotkey and a terminal drops down from the top of the screen. It's themeable and new themes can be downloaded. I use the Breeze Transparent theme.
See at https://apps.kde.org/yakuake/ or install with dnf.
sudo dnf install yakuake
I really, really want to use Kate. It has a decent markdown viewer but you can't do anything with it. VSCode has a nice markdown plugin by Yu Zhang called Markdown All in One. It's very good.
At this point (Fedora 40) VSCode isn't in the Fedora or RPM Fusion repositories. You can download it but I like having it installed from a repo so it stays up to date without having use a Flatpak.
This will install the repo and key
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
sudo sh -c 'echo -e "[code]\nname=Visual Studio Code\nbaseurl=https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/vscode\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc" > /etc/yum.repos.d/vscode.repo'
Then
sudo dnf check-update
sudo dnf install code
If you prefer Flatpaks
flatpak install https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.visualstudio.code.flatpakref
See https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux or Microsoft's Visual Studio Code GitHub page for more information.
If you get documents created in Microsoft Word and open them in LibreOffice sometimes you'll get strange font conversions. The program will use the font listed in the document unless it doesn't have it installed. Then it will try to find something compatible.
You can install the Microsoft open fonts that will take care of most of this. They're on SourceForge
rpm -i --quiet https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/mscorefonts2/rpms/msttcore-fonts-installer-2.6-1.noarch.rpm
You'll need cabextract and xorg-x11-font-utils to install the fonts.
I still do a lot over in Microsoft 365 and the OneDrive client for Linux is way, way better than it used to be. I use it with a 365 Business account but it should work the same for the personal version. It doesn't default to files-on-demand like the Windows & Mac clients do so it just syncs everything the way you'd expect.
After adding the RPM Fusion repos,
dnf install onedrive
I would still keep an eye on it just to make sure it doesn't do strange things.
Here are some other apps I use.
Fedy is a utility from the people who provide RPM Fusion. It's a utility that lets you install utilities and codecs from a nice graphical interface.
You can get it from their Github repo: https://github.com/rpmfusion-infra/fedy
I found more than one Fedy repo on Github so I'd use the one from the RPM Fusion team.
DNF Dragora provides a graphical utility to install software. It gives a more package-centric way to install apps as opposed to Discover which is more app-centric.
Install it with
sudo dnf install dnfdragora
Flatpak support is enable in Fedora by default. To enable the Flathub repo
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
To enable the Fedora Flatpak repo
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists fedora oci+https://registry.fedoraproject.org
Discover will automatically list Flatpaks available and will note which apps are Flatpaks.
For more information, see the Fedora Developer page for Flatpaks https://developer.fedoraproject.org/deployment/flatpak/flatpak-usage.html
You can see all available Flatpaks by going to https://www.flathub.org
I've created my private and public keys but the correct permissions are easy to forget. Just use chmod permissions filename/directory
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
This is probably obvious but have more than one if possible. It can be as simple and copying everything to an external USB drive to using a tool like rsync. Here's a good list of suggestions.
https://linuxhint.com/11_best_backup_tools_linux/
Keep in mind that cloud solutions may or may not work well for a backup solution. I keep files and config information on the cloud but I do full backups to an external drive. If you need to restore your machine from the cloud it could take a very long time.
This isn't so much a problem with Linux but Apple's iCloud drive and Microsoft's OneDrive have a 'Files on Demand' setting that defaults to on. It looks like the files are there but the backup app won't save them. Be careful with any kind of cloud-based solution.
IPv6 can cause problems. To disable it, run
sudo nano /etc/sysctl
add the following lines:
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1
then sudo sysctl -p to disable it.
See the article https://idroot.us/disable-ipv6-fedora-39/ for more info.
I use NordVPN on MacOS and Linux. For info, see https://support.nordvpn.com/Connectivity/Linux/1325529112/Installing-and-using-NordVPN-on-Fedora-and-QubesOS-Linux.htm/.
Then install it using their script
sh <(curl -sSf https://downloads.nordcdn.com/apps/linux/install.sh)
I have had problems using their NordLynx protocol where the VPN would just freeze up. I switched over to using OpenVPN and everything works fine.
nordvpn set technology OpenVPN
With NordVPN and other VPN's they use their own DNS so you may
get a 'Limited Connectivity' message. That's fine; it's saying
it can't connect to things on the network it knows about.
It's easiest to do it in the settings app, but if you want to do it
from the command line install tlp, then you can set power management this way
cpupower frequency-set --governor conservative
Read the man page for cpupower for more options
There are people out there who recommend disabling SELinux when alerts start popping up. SELinux is a powerful security tool. It runs in three modes: disabled, permissive & enforcing. Fedora defaults to enforcing.
Disable it at your own risk.
I've never seen anything installed from the Fedora or RPMFusion repositories that caused an SELinux exception, except for some stuff in Wine. For me it's mostly been something where I downloaded a binary or compiled from source.
If you install setroubleshoot (I recommend it) it will give you a detailed description of what the problem is. If you get an SELinux alert something is trying to write where it doesn't have permission. If the app should be able to write there you can tell SELinux to allow that app to access that file.
Here is a good overview of SELinux for Fedora. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/getting-started-with-selinux/
The main config file is /etc/default/grub. I set mine up with these differences.
I add/change these lines to the grub config file.
First, the theme
GRUB_THEME=/boot/grub2/themes/poly-dark/theme.txt
For the submenus the wording is a bit strange, but disabling this will enable the submenu on the Grub menu. It puts the other kernels into the submenu cleaning up your menu. But since I've switched over to enabling BLSCFG this feature stopped working.
GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=false
I recommend disabling disabling recovery. The Recovery options are always a good idea to have. Plus if you enable the submenu Grub puts them all there.
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=false
The default menu item when Grub starts
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
Sets the resolution of the Grub screen if you're using graphics
GRUB_GFXMODE=auto
This will set your grub options. To save changes and write the Grub menu to disk. If you're running on a UEFI system run
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg
For legacy systems run
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
You can edit grub.cfg directly for testing, but it will work until grub2-mkconfig overwrites it.
The Grub menu is built from config files in /etc/grub.d. You'll need root privileges.
30_os-prober handles menu entries for other OSs. Open it and find the menuentry immediately after searching for 'Windows' and change the first part to menuentry '$(echo "Windows")'Make sure you get that last single quote. This way it just says 'Windows' and not all of the other stuff.
Or, you could change it to read 'Windoze, 'Help me God' or whatever you'd like :)
10_Linux adds the Fedora kernels to the main menu. I modified this one so the primary Fedora menu entry just says 'Fedora' instead of with all of the kernel information added.
Look for menuentry '$(echo "$title" | grub_quote)' in the populate_menu() section and remove | grub_quote)
You can download Grub themes from gnome-look.org or the KDE store. Depending on your monitor and/or resolution you may want to change the font sizes.
Here's a good article explaining how to do it
There are some nice Grub themes here
The plymouth-kcm package can be installed to give a Plymouth section in the KDE Settings app.
Plymouth splash screens are found in /usr/share/plymouth/themes. I went into the spinner theme and added background-tile.png with my standard splash wallpaper. If the theme you want to modify doesn't have background-tile.png copy your wallpaper into the directory & reselect the Plymouth theme. Otherwise just replace it.
plymouth-set-default-theme -R <theme name>
The Arch Linux site has a good writeup on Plymouth https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Plymouth
The only problem I've had running betas are with the RPM Fusion repos sometimes not being up yet.
I've been leery about doing a full update of an OS since the Windows 3.1 days. Fedora is way more stable than Windows ever was but my phobia remains. 😎 I always back everything up and do a fresh install.
But if you want to upgrade your Fedora installation here's instructions on how to do it. Upgrading to a new release of Fedora
I started having problems with Fedora either not seeing the sound card or everything went to a dummy output device. I have a ThinkPad with the Intel sound chip so I added an entry to /etc/default/grub
In GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, add this to the list of parameters:
snd_hda_intel.dmic_detect=0
I haven't had a sound problem since. I have another machine that has a Ryzen and the AMD sound device. I haven't found the correct setting for it.
VirtualBox VMs will hang under Wayland. You can make them work again by disabling the mini toolbar under User Interface in the VM's settings, or by installing X11 and moving off Wayland.
I'm a ham radio operator (K5SGC) and I've been able to get most of the ham radio software I need to run working correctly in Fedora. Much of it runs under Wine but there is a good amount that runs native in Linux.