Why Fedora?

Fedora offers a high-quality out-of-the-box experience while remaining highly flexible. It is stable, yet it has up-to-date and cutting edge packages.

Installation

• Install Fedora onto your machine

  TODO: A video step-by-step installation.

  • Installing Fedora in the Simplest Possible Way by Abhishek Prakash from It's FOSS.

  • NVIDIA GPU Driver Installation by the Fedora Docs.

  • Fedora on MacBook by Official Asahi Linux.

• Update system

  Terminal

  sudo dnf update -y

  GUI (Gnome Software)

  

• Update your firmware

  Firmware updates can fix real bugs (battery life, sleep problems, dodgy webcams).

  Terminal

  fwupdmgr refresh --force
  fwupdmgr get-updates
  fwupdmgr update

  GUI (Gnome Software)

  Firmware updates show up next to your normal updates in the Updates tab.

  

• Reboot

  reboot

Other Repositories

Fedora leaves out a fair amount of software for legal, licensing, and philosophical reasons. You may consider the repositories below.

RPM Fusion

RPM Fusion carries video and audio formats, NVIDIA drivers, and plenty more. Most readers will want this one.

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

Gnome Software's Third Party Repositories toggle is not the same thing. It only adds a couple of narrow slices of RPM Fusion, such as the NVIDIA driver and Steam.

Terra

Terra is a community package repository for Fedora by Fyra Labs. 2000+ propietary/nonfree packages that Fedora doesn't ship by default can be found in Terra.

sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck --repofrompath 'terra,https://repos.fyralabs.com/terra$releasever' terra-release

Once enabled, you can install its packages with the regular dnf command.

Flathub (Flatpaks)

Many Linux apps are distributed as Flatpaks, a universal package format that works on every distro.

Set up the largest Flatpak repository here: Flatpak Setup.

Multimedia Codecs

Fedora ships without several common video and audio formats, so some videos refuse to play and some files won't open. Pull these from RPM Fusion:

• Install codecs

  Enable RPM Fusion first, or these commands will have nothing to fetch.

  sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing
  sudo dnf group upgrade multimedia
  sudo dnf group upgrade core

• Reboot once it finishes

  reboot

Hardware video acceleration

Fedora's stock drivers cannot process two common video formats (H.264 and HEVC) on your graphics chip. To avoid draining your battery and stutter on high-resolution video:

• Install drivers

  AMD

  sudo dnf install mesa-va-drivers-freeworld

  Intel

  sudo dnf install intel-media-driver

  NVIDIA

  sudo dnf install libva-nvidia-driver

• Reboot

  reboot

Create snapshots/backups for your computer

We'll be using btrfs-assistant, a simple GUI for managing snapshots. It sits on top of snapper and uses Fedora's default BTRFS filesystem, so snapshots are quick and preserve SELinux labels — no permissive mode and no relabeling needed.

Prefer the terminal?

Every step below is also available through the snapper CLI if you'd rather not use the GUI.

• Install btrfs-assistant

  sudo dnf install btrfs-assistant snapper python3-dnf-plugin-snapper

• Set up snapshots

  Open btrfs-assistant and go to the Snapper Settings tab. Click New, set Backup path to /, give it a Config name, then click Save.

  

  With the config selected, tick Enable timeline snapshots and choose how many to keep under Snapshot Retention.

  

  Then, under systemd Unit Settings, tick Snapper timeline enabled and Snapper cleanup enabled and click Apply systemd changes.

  

  What these three systemd options do

  These systemd timers automate your snapshots.

  Snapper timeline runs per the schedule you set, giving you a steady stream of recent restore points with no effort.

  Snapper cleanup runs periodically and deletes old snapshots so they never fill the disk using the limits you set.

  Snapper boot takes a snapshot every time you turn your computer on. We leave this one off — your timeline snapshots already cover you; this would fill your snapshot limit much faster.

• Take your first snapshot

  Switch to the Snapper tab, select your config, and click New to take a manual snapshot. Give it a description like clean install.

  

• Restore a snapshot when needed

  On the Snapper tab, open the Browse/Restore view, select the snapshot you want, and click Restore. Reboot once it completes.

  Want to boot straight into a snapshot when your system won't start? grub-btrfs adds a snapshots submenu to GRUB for exactly that. It has no Fedora package and must be built from source, so follow its README if you'd like to set it up.

Contributors

Lunear01aier9500

Changelog

8/3/26, 3:01 AM

View All Changelog

• 2d555-Avoiding cross-pointingon 8/3/26
• 3c19f-Fedora guide: codecs, RPM Fusion, firmware, hardware decodeon 8/3/26
• b1397-docs(fedora): point NVIDIA driver link to Fedora Docson 7/13/26
• 86748-Added Terraon 7/13/26
• ac6e7-Snapper section polish .on 6/23/26
• 53daa-Consistency, simplification, and cleanup checkson 6/23/26
• 51008-Minor tweaks, taking aiers-fedora-checklist to production within aier's gnomeon 6/19/26
• a436a-Enhance Fedora guide with images for btrfs-assistant setup and snapshot management instructionson 5/29/26
• dbb96-Refactor Timeshift documentation to recommend btrfs-assistant and update installation instructions; remove outdated images.on 5/29/26
• 56e54-Add new GNOME extension and update Timeshift instructions for clarityon 5/12/26
• 00c9a-#39 Reformat project so each markdown file has their own asset subfolder in the public asset folder.on 4/30/26
• 41235-GB Englishon 4/30/26
• f5812-Replaced **bold with highlightson 2/4/26
• 35118-Grammar and Spell Checks for the entire Webon 12/11/25
• ea68b-Important fixes for Backup guide.on 12/10/25
• 5810a-Cleaner way of displaying contributors in articles.on 12/9/25
• a7215-Update to use permalinkon 12/2/25
• 15837-Polishing aier's Gnome and pinning it.on 11/14/25
• 6f292-Enhance markdown formatting for consistency across documentationon 7/12/25
• d4a77-Remove co-author card placeholders from Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, and Fedora guideson 6/24/25
• e2f6b-Refactor guide authorship sections: update titles from "Maintainer" to "Author(s)" and "Contributors" to "Co-author(s)" across multiple guideson 6/13/25
• c31f9-Refactor terminal customization guide for improved clarity; update Bash example formatting and enhance details for Timeshift setup in Fedora guide.on 6/12/25
• 9c0ab-Refactor guides for improved formatting and clarity across Vuepress, Essentials, Popular, Arch, and Fedora documentationon 6/11/25
• 9d94b-maintainers tag added and guideline page addedon 6/10/25
• dbe78-Fedora guide maintainance.on 6/9/25
• f9fed-OCDon 6/9/25
• 6160a-Untaggingon 6/9/25
• e5a30-Editing Fedora and Gnome guide.on 6/8/25
• 8ddf1-Fedora guideon 6/7/25
• 79fad-Fedora guideon 6/7/25
• 945f3-Fedora Guideon 6/7/25
• 7e493-Noteon 6/7/25
• b2539-Edited arch.md, fix homepage become contributor link, started linux guide home pageon 6/3/25
• 41f78-deleting legacy metadataon 5/31/25
• 362e5-Moved to linux-guideson 5/30/25
• ddcec-Batch metadata editingon 5/29/25
• 20414-Draftson 5/29/25
• fb788-under-construction addedon 5/29/25