Wanted to get in some gaming on your shiny new Fedora install, but have no clue how to do it? That’s ok, I’ll teach you some of the things you’ll need to know.

Fedora Games Lab

If you know you’ll be using your computer for mainly gaming, you may be better off using the Fedora Games Lab. It’s just like Fedora Workstation, but comes preinstalled with a bunch of games in the Fedora Repos.

Extra Software Sources

The Games Lab is cool and all, but chances are you haven’t heard of many of the games in comes with. Many of the games available don’t have the massive advertising budgets that other games do. While I suggest at least giving some of the games a try, you’ll probably want to be able to get games from more popular sources like Steam.

Installing Steam

The people behind Fedora like to only promote free software. However, they realize the demand for Steam and have made it easy to install. Step one is installing the third-party repos available in the Fedora Repos. I’d suggest checking out the guide written in the Fedora Magazine by Ryan Lerch for instructions on how to enable the third-party repo with Steam.

After the third-party repos are enabled, you need to either search for Steam in the Software app, or use the command sudo dnf install steam .

RPM Fusion

To expand the software available to you, you may want to consider installing RPM Fusion. RPM Fusion is a third-party repo dedicated to packaging the software Fedora doesn’t want to. This includes some games. RPM Fusion’s wiki provides a guide to setting up their repos.

Lutris, an automated game installer

Lutris is a cool piece of software that makes gaming on Linux much easier. It allows you to search for and run software install scripts written by other Lutris users. These install scripts remove most of the effort from installing games, especially those with difficult setup. While primarily made for games, Lutris supports other types of software too.

Lutris is in the Fedora Repos, which means it can be installed on any Fedora machine. All you have to do is search for Lutris in the software app or use the command sudo dnf install lutris .

The DNF Alternatives

While Fedora uses a piece of software called DNF by default for managing software, there are two more methods that can be used: Snap and Flatpak. Both of these enable installing from more sources.

Snap

Installing Snap takes only 1 command, sudo dnf install snapd . The Software app will automatically set itself up to use Snap in addition to DNF.

Flatpak (and Flathub)

Flatpak is on Fedora by default now, but doesn’t have a repository that includes extra games by default. To get the extra repository, you’ll need to download a repo file from Flatpak’s website. Just like Snap, the Software app will set itself up to use Flatpak in addition to other software sources.

Nvidia Drivers

While Fedora comes with it’s own GPU drivers that work with Nvidia, they aren’t as fast as the official proprietary ones. The Fedora Magazine also has an article on how to perform this, written by Justice del Castillo. Check that out for install instructions.

Be warned that the Nvidia drivers aren’t supported by some parts of Fedora and may cause problems. Back up your files before attempting an install.

More on Gaming in Fedora

There a whole category on the Fedora Discord just for gaming. You can come chat with us about your experiences, just use the invite code fedora. While I can be reached by tagging @-1/12#2574 on that discord, anyone there can help out and chat.