Fedora Workstation Setup - My Daily Driver

Overview

This guide walks through my personal setup for Fedora Workstation on my daily driver laptop. These are tools and configurations I personally prefer and use daily for development and productivity. Your preferences may differ, so feel free to adapt this setup to your specific needs and workflow.

Prerequisites

• Fedora Workstation installed and initial setup completed
• sudo access on your system
• Internet connection for downloading packages

Install Brave Browser

Brave is a privacy-focused browser based on Chromium. I prefer installing from the official RPM repository for easy updates.

For the latest installation instructions, visit Brave’s Linux download page.

sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core

sudo dnf config-manager addrepo --from-repofile=https://brave-browser-rpm-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser.repo

sudo dnf check-update

sudo dnf install brave-browser

Install Essential Packages

These packages provide system monitoring, development tools, and customization options:

• btop — Interactive process viewer and system monitor
• nodejs24 — JavaScript runtime for development
• nextcloud-client — Sync files with Nextcloud servers
• gnome-tweaks — Customize GNOME desktop settings
• gnome-extensions-app — Manage GNOME Shell extensions

sudo dnf install btop nodejs24 nextcloud-client gnome-tweaks gnome-extensions-app

Install Visual Studio Code

VS Code is a lightweight, powerful code editor. Installing from Microsoft’s official repository ensures regular updates.

# Import Microsoft's GPG key
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc

# Add VS Code repository
echo -e "[code]\nname=Visual Studio Code\nbaseurl=https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/vscode\nenabled=1\nautorefresh=1\ntype=rpm-md\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc" | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/vscode.repo > /dev/null

# Update package cache and install
sudo dnf check-update

sudo dnf install code

Configure Git and Generate SSH Key

Set up Git with your identity and generate an ED25519 SSH key (more secure than RSA).

# Generate SSH key (replace with your email)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"

# Configure Git globally
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
git config --global init.defaultBranch main

Then add your public key (~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub) to GitHub or your Git hosting service.

Install GNOME Extensions

These extensions enhance the GNOME desktop experience:

• AppIndicator — Show system tray icons in the top panel
• Blur My Shell — Add blur effects to the shell UI

sudo dnf install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator gnome-shell-extension-blur-my-shell

You can manage installed extensions using the “Extensions” app installed earlier.

Install and Configure Tailscale

Tailscale is a zero-config VPN service that makes it easy to access your devices securely.

# Add Tailscale repository
sudo dnf config-manager addrepo --from-repofile=https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/fedora/tailscale.repo

# Update cache and install
sudo dnf check-update

sudo dnf install tailscale

# Enable and start the Tailscale daemon
sudo systemctl enable --now tailscaled

# Authenticate with your Tailscale account
sudo tailscale up

Enable System Tray Integration

To show Tailscale status in your system tray:

# Configure systray to start on login
tailscale configure systray --enable-startup=systemd

# Enable and start the user-level systray service
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable tailscale-systray
systemctl --user start tailscale-systray

Optional: Grant Tailscale Operator Privileges

# Replace 'username' with your actual username
sudo tailscale set --operator=username

# Accept subnet routes from other Tailscale devices
sudo tailscale set --accept-routes

Install Corepack and Enable Yarn

Corepack is a Node.js feature that manages package managers like Yarn and PNPM, ensuring version consistency across projects.

# Install Corepack globally
sudo npm install -g corepack

# Enable Yarn support
corepack enable

Install RPM Fusion

RPM Fusion provides additional software repositories with packages that cannot be included in Fedora due to licensing or patent restrictions. This includes multimedia codecs, drivers, and other proprietary software.

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

Upgrade Multimedia Packages

After adding RPM Fusion, upgrade your multimedia packages to include better codec support:

sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing
sudo dnf update @multimedia --setopt="install_weak_deps=False" --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin

Hardware Video Acceleration

Hardware video acceleration significantly improves video playback performance and reduces CPU usage by offloading decoding to your GPU:

# For Intel GPUs
sudo dnf swap libva-intel-media-driver intel-media-driver --allowerasing
sudo dnf install libva-intel-driver

# Common libraries for all systems
sudo dnf install ffmpeg-libs libva libva-utils

Verify Hardware Acceleration:

vainfo

Next Steps

• Customize GNOME using the Tweaks app for keyboard shortcuts and appearance
• Install VS Code extensions for your preferred programming languages
• Explore additional GNOME extensions from extensions.gnome.org
• Set up your development environment per project needs
• Keep your system updated regularly with sudo dnf upgrade

Happy coding!