Fedora releases a new version in approximately every 6 months. Each now version is supported with updates for 13 months in total. The distribution is a good place to get the latest stable software and technologies consistently.

The latest stable version is currently Fedora 32, you can download it from the Fedora official website.

If you are a new Fedora user, you may be wondering about what to do after installation. The guide will help you through this part. No matter the supported Fedora version you use, you can apply everything on this list.

Run a System Update

This should be pretty obvious in any new installation for any Linux distribution. In most cases, there are a lot of updates and bug fixes for problems which may exist in the new release. Running an update for your system packages would be a wise decision to do before starting to use the system and complain later about problems which may already be solved.

To update your system, simply run the following command:

sudo dnf update

Enable RPM Fusion

Due to Fedora policy on shipping packages which do follow certain standards and rules related to patents and liberty of software. Some packages are not available to be installed from the official Fedora repositories. Most of the time, you can find those packages that you need in RPM Fusion. It’s a repository which ships what Fedora doesn’t accept.

There are two repositories to add here: One of them is the free repository which only contains free software, and which you can install by running:

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

And the non-free repository, which, just as its name suggests, contains non-free software:

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

After you’ve added those repositories. You can go ahead and install any package you need from RPM Fusion. If you don’t know what you are looking for, consider using the search box at their website.

Enable DeltaRPM and Fastest Mirror Plugins

DNF offers a set of modules which you can enable on your system.

One of the best among these is DeltaRPM. What DeltaRPM does is that it allows you only to retrieve the differences between the packages installed on your system and the newly available packages via updates.

In other words, instead of downloading the complete Firefox 55 package (for example) to upgrade from Firefox 54, you only download the new & modified files. In this way, you can save up to 90% download traffic when updating your system. This, however, may affect your CPU load when running updates.

Fastest mirror is another plugin which simply determines the nearest mirror available to you right now. If you are located in China, then instead of downloading packages from US, it will try to find a mirror near your geographical location to make the download process faster.

To enable both plugins, append the following two lines into your /etc/dnf/dnf.conf file:

fastestmirror=true deltarpm=true

The plugins will work automatically from now on when you run DNF.

Install Fedy

Image via: https://www.folkswithhats.org/

Fedy is a graphical tool which allows you to tweak your Fedora system in few clicks. The application allows you to run a set of pre-defined system commands which install and configure a lot of stuff. From normal apps to themes and passing by various tweaks to the system, Fedy can almost do everything you may need on Fedora.

You can check the “Apps” and “Development Tools” for programs which you can install in a single click. Additionally, there’s a set of themes to try under the “Themes” tab:

There’s also some tweaks which you can run on your system, each one of them is explained in a line under it. You can safely try to run what you need:

Finally, you have the “Utilities” tab which allows you to install codecs and various other things. I suggest you to run what you need only from them. However, stay away from Flash:

To install Fedy on the latest Fedora release make sure that you’ve already enabled the RPM Fusion repositories in the previous stop, and then run the following commands:

sudo dnf copr enable kwizart/fedy

sudo dnf install fedy -y

Important: The original Fedy maintainer stopped working on it and removed his own repository. From now on, you are installing the Fedy version that is being seperatly maintained by the RPM Fusion repository team. Check this homepage for info.

Get Important Firefox Addons

Firefox is the default web browser in Fedora. Since you are – probably – going to use it everyday. It’s better for you to try a set of different addons and extensions:

HTTPS Everywhere: The famous HTTPS protocol plugin. Must have for web encryption.

Cookies Autodelete: For a better privacy and anonymity on the Internet. It’s better to destroy the cookies directly after you close the tab it’s associated with. This is exactly what this extension does. Although it will directly end your sessions (you will have to login again each time), but it will give you a good privacy shield.

uBlock Origin: The famous ad-blocker plugin. Please make sure to add us to the whitelist!

Privacy Badger: Block tracking scripts and other 3rd-party online tracking software.

You can also read a better list here:

Reduce Battery Usage

Some users – on some specific hardware – my notice a higher battery consumption rate on Linux than on Windows. This is explained in details with the solutions as well in our article: “7 Tips to Reduce Battery Usage on Linux“.

The main and easiest thing you can do to solve this problem on Fedora, is simply installing TLP. Which is a nice power management system working in the background to save battery power when possible:

sudo dnf install tlp tlp-rdw sudo systemctl enable tlp

Then reboot your system.

Install Steam

If you like having some games on your PC to enjoy from time to time, then Steam is definitly the way to go on Linux. 25% of all games on Steam now support Linux. Which is why it’s a must if you are a gamer.

After you have enabled the non-free RPM Fusion repository, you can install Steam on Fedora using:

sudo dnf install steam

Also read the following post on how to enable Steam Play on Linux to run Windows games.

Install VLC To Play Multimedia Files

One of the most famous multimedia players all over the world. Its main feature is that it can run the multimedia formats you may see and supports all codecs. Above that, it’s free and open source.

A simple DNF command would work:

sudo dnf install vlc

Customize GNOME Shell

Fedora Workstation comes with GNOME Shell desktop by default. It’s very customizable. All what you need to do is to head toward extensions.gnome.org and install the extensions you like. This is a quick list we recommend:

User Themes: A must-have extension. In order to be able to use themes from your ~/.themes folder, you must install this extension first.

folder, you must install this extension first. OpenWeather: A simple panel applet which displays weather conditions automatically.

TopIcons Plus Git: Restores the system tray icons on the top bar (alternative to TopIcons Plus).

Frippery Move Clock: Move the clock applet to the right side of the panel.

Frippery Panel Favorites: Add your favorite applications as icons to the top panel.

Dash to Panel: Moves GNOME panel into the bottom. Making it looking like Windows or KDE panel (don’t install the Frippery panel favorites extension if you are going to use this one).

Also Read: Turn GNOME to Heaven with these 23 GNOME Extensions.

Additionally, you may download GTK+ 3 themes, GNOME Shell themes and icon themes from Gnome-look.org.

Setup Dropbox

Backups are really important, and I recommend setting up this solution in all posts related to Linux distributions configurations. My laptop was stolen once and it had a lot of my projects and drafts which were not in my backups. That’s why I feel obligated to say it over and over: People, always setup a backup plan.

Dropbox is one of the common methods to use. You can simply install its Nautilus integration extension via:

sudo dnf install dropbox nautilus-dropbox

After that, you can open Dropbox from the applications menu in order to start configuring it. Later on you will have a folder called “Dropbox” in your home folder. You can use it to sync your files across your devices and with your Dropbox account.

Conclusion

This was our list for things to do after installing Fedora. Now you should be ready to start using your new OS on daily bases according to your needs. Remember that Fedora-like any other distribution-is pretty much customizable. If you don’t like something in the system, you can simply change it to what you want.

What are some things that you do after installing Fedora? Share them with us in comments.