There are plenty of "what to do after you install Fedora 32" posts out there, and they are all the same. Same dreary selection of apps, same basic commands.
What I'm looking to do here is just look at some of the alternatives out there and some of the things you should look at to really make the experience a pleasant one.
This is written by someone who uses Linux as a daily driver not just as a review device to generate clicks.
I don't expect everyone to agree with every choice, thats why we use linux, because we have personal preferences. However maybe just one of these suggestions may change how you use Fedora.
The Basics
I'm not including these as tips, this is some pre setup
Run an Update
sudo dnf install update
Install Repos
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
Speedup Updates
By checking the delta between updates you can speed up dns
sudo vi /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
Add these two lines to the end of the file
fastestmirror=true
deltarpm=true
Save Exit
Done, the basics are now setup
My Tips
So what do I suggest doing?
Disable Wayland
By Default Wayland is enabled, and on the Dell XPS 13 I have had no end of issues with it crashing on Fedora 32. These were resolved by disabling it
Open /etc/gdm/custom.conf and uncomment
WaylandEnable=false
Add the following line to the [daemon] section:
DefaultSession=gnome-xorg.desktop
Save the custom.conf file.
Next time you reboot the system it will boot into an Xorg Gnome, and things will just to magically stat to work.
Guake Terminal
Guake is the drop down Terminal which should be installed on Gnome by default if iwt was up to me. I find both the tabs being on by default (something the Gnome Terminal has isses with by default)
Freeoffice
The obsession the linux community has with Libreoffice blows my mind. Its slow, it lags behind office, it looks terrible and yet every distro seems to gush over it. Lets get rid of it and install a far better office suite.
First remove Libreoffice
sudo dnf remove libreoffice* -y
Then download FreeOffice from the link above and install it.
IF you want you can uptdate to Softoffice on either a paid or per month subscription, however I've not found a compelling reason to do this with my usage.
Atom
Gedit is the notepad of Gnome and its passed its best by date, as an alternative I use Atom. Wile promoted of something of a development editor with a large plugin infrastucture and fully customizable, out of the box its a quick, simple, easy text editor.
Hyper Console
Coming from KDE and I like using Konsole, the default gnome termainal is setup poorly in Fedora and out of the box with Wayland seems to crash each time i try and turn on Tabbed terminals.
Like Atom, Hyper is a new breed of project and while i would use Guake as the daily driver terminal for those small tasks I happily use Hyper for longer terminal sessions.
Default Open Applications
Posted byDennis
The list of default applications in ~/.config/mimeapps.list is a long one, and it seems the Gnome Gui doesn't allow much more than the basics to be changed as the default application.
While trying to find a way to change the default text editor (not a gui option, why?) I found the above site and the advice is to edit a file
vi ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list
Then add the following
[Default Applications]
text/plain=gvim.desktop
application/x-perl=gvim.desktop
text/x-chdr=gvim.desktop
text/x-csrc=gvim.desktop
text/x-dtd=gvim.desktop
text/x-java=gvim.desktop
text/mathml=gvim.desktop
text/x-python=gvim.desktop
text/x-sql=gvim.desktop
In the example for the page the person wanted to set gvim as the default editor, as you see you'd just need to replace gvim.desktop with the launched (under /usr/share/applications) you want to replace gedit with.
Take a look down ~/.config/mimeapp.list for examples you would add to the above file. Terminal for example could be hyper.desktop.
Font Management
Fonts are terrible on Fedora out of the box, and its well documented. I think this has something to do with not installing certain types of binaries out of the ISO. Which is a shame, however there are several possible ways of resolving this.
First step is install
sudo dnf install gnome-tweak-tool
Open the tweak tool and open fonts
Change the default font to the Liveration Font
If they are not listed
download the tar ball from the Liberation fonts website: https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ .
Second, unpack the tar ball and copy the TTFs to ~/.fonts for user wide usage, or to /usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation for system-wide availability.
Last, run fc-cache to make the fonts cached.
Next
Install the patched version of FreeType with subpixel rendering enabled:
sudo dnf install -y freetype-freeworld
Create the symbolic links in /etc/fonts/conf.d as follows:
cd /etc/fonts/conf.d
Create symbolic links
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf
Change text anti-aliasing and typeface hinting settings as follows (no sudo is required):
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings antialiasing rgba
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings hinting slight
The values above work best for me so feel free to try the values other than the above that work best for you:
antialiasing: can be any of "none", "grayscale", or "rgba"
hinting: can be any of "none", "slight", "medium", or "full"
Of course, you can reset these settings to their default values if you think you might have messed things up or would like to start from scratch, etc.:
gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings antialiasing
gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings hinting
Restart applications for these settings to take effect if they were running when making these changes (usually not necessary).
Install Snap
RSS/XML feed
People either love or hate Snap. I use several applications which are either snap only or are just easier installed using Snap
To install the snapd package type the following dnf command:
sudo dnf install snapd
Setup a symlink using the ln command
Snaps using classic confinement, such as code editors, also require a symlink from /var/lib/snapd/snap to /snap. Type the following ln command:
$ sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap
the link above has some useful command lines if you've never used snap
Youtube Music App Image
As a heavy user of Youtube music its nice to have the interface as an "app" outside of the browser window. Its possible to install the app using Snap (above) however I lock my Google account down using advanced security protection and need a token to log into it. Snap doesn't support this at the time of writing with this app.
There is on the git page an appimage file which works with Token login and the Google account.
Gnome 3 Extentions
What a mess Gnome extentions are, especially with the xorg/wayland mix. Which is a shame because there is some very useful stuff in there. However between various issues its like wading through junk to find diamonds.
System Tray Icons
Some absolute genius developer on the Gnome project took it upon themselves to "improve" things by removing the systray in the main iterface. Seeing these Icons seems to require both thse plugins
Lock Keys
Like to be able to see the status of the lock keys popup as a screen dialog more than anything about this plugin
LAN IP Address
I like to flit between VPN's and networks, and this is a quick visual check as to where I am
Move the Clock
Why this is in the middle of the toolbar I don't know, this extention puts it where it should be, to the side.
Extended Gestures
I'm a big lover of the three finger swipe to swap between desktops on the Mac, and this extention provides just that on the Gnome Desktop
CPU Power Usage
As well as doing a good job displaying the stats of the CPU, you can use this extention to swap between CPU power modes from full on to power save.
Coverflow Alt Tab
Changes the Alt Tab Eyecandy into something a little prettier than the default switcher.
Auto Move Windows
Using this extention windows can be placed into specific gnome workspaces when they are opened. I find this useful keeping Browsers and Terminals out of the way.
Audio Input and Output switchers
When I dock my laptop there is a choice of audio input and output available from 5.1 speaker system to a Jabra conference puck. This is a nice feature allowing me to switch between the input and output devices.
Conclusion
I was expecting a lot more out of fedora which on the face of it is a mature, polished distro. However there are lots of bugs in release 32 which need sorting. I found the Wayland implementation to be a big problem and the Font implementation needs to better when docked to larger screens.
However it may be Gnome, or Fedoras implementation of it which is my biggest issue with this distro version. Its so locked down as to be a hindrance rather than a minimalistic help.
Bonus
Use my Wireguard Script
Have a read of this if you're using a Wireguard VPN.
David Field
