8 things to do after installing Fedora 24

I have been playing with Fedora 24 on my Dell XPS 13 (2016) since it was released earlier this week, and it looks great. Fedora is an all-around distribution that has separate editions for separate audiences, and that makes it a lean distro. You get what you only what you need without any bloatware.

Fedora 24 comes with a decent set of applications pre-installed, but here are some things that I routinely do after installing Fedora that will help you get down to work (and play).

Linux is known for security because distributions keep libraries and packages updated all the time. It’s a good idea to run updates once a week (I do it daily) to see if there are any packages that need updating.

(Note: Fedora has moved away from yum to dnf as the default package manager, so we will use ‘dnf’ in all commands).

sudo dnf check-update will list all available updates

Now you can install these updates by running sudo dnf upgrade.

Unlike Windows, you don’t have to restart your Linux system after upgrades!

Fedora doesn’t include many software packages due to patent and licensing issues. So if you want to install software that isn’t pre-installed on Fedora, you need to first install a repository. RPM Fusion is the best repo for Fedora users.

There are two RPM Fusion repositories available: free and non-free. You should install both of these repositories, but install free first. If you are running Fedora 24, just click on the links below, one by one and it will install the repositories. Alternatively, you can go to this page and install them.

Install RPMFusion free

Install RMPFusion non-free

What good is a Linux system without entertainment? Before you install a music player on your Fedora system, though, you need to install mp3 plugins. This command will install the required codecs and plugins:

sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras ffmpeg

Fedora 24 comes with Rhythmbox as the default music player (of course, you need to install the mp3 plugins before it will work), but there are others that you might prefer to use instead. Clementine used to be my to-go music player, but I experienced some problems on Fedora so I went with Tomahawk. Install Tomahawk with this command: sudo dnf install tomahawk

After installation, Tomahawk offers to install some extra plugins. None are essential but they will extend the functionality of Tomahawk.

We have taken care of our music needs, now it’s movie time. Fedora comes with a default movie player, but I heavily recommend VLC. VLC is like a Swiss Army knife for video playback because it can play virtually any video format without requiring any extra codecs or plugins

This command will do the trick: sudo dnf install vlc 

Firefox is the default web browser of Fedora 24, but if you want to watch a streaming service like Netflix your best bet is Google Chrome. You can install Chrome from the official site. Just download the .rpm file and choose “open with ‘Software Install’.” Fedora will install Chrome without any issues.

Gnome heavily relies on extensions, but Fedora doesn’t ship with a tool to manage such extensions. Install the Gnome Tweak Tool to manage different aspects of the Gnome desktop, including extensions: sudo dnf install gnome-tweak-tool

Tweak Tool comes with some extensions and you can install more extensions from the Gnome Extension site.

One thing that Gnome got right is great integration between applications. Once you configure a Gmail account, for example, you can choose which services you want to integrate with the system.

In addition, the Online Accounts tool also allows access to many services that are not yet available for Linux, like access to Google Drive from Files, the file manager of Gnome.