Figured we’d start a running list of Fedora tips, the kind of stuff that’s obvious once you know it but easy to miss when you’re getting settled in. Add yours below.
Enable RPM Fusion. Most of the multimedia codecs, NVIDIA drivers, and various bits you’ll want aren’t in the default repos for licensing reasons. The free and nonfree repos take two minutes to set up and save you a lot of head scratching later.
dnf is faster now. If you’re coming from older Fedora habits, dnf5 is a BIG speed jump. Worth getting comfortable with dnf history too.
dnf history undo is your safety net. Every install and update is tracked as a transaction, so if an update breaks something you can roll the whole thing back with one command instead of hunting down what changed:
Don’t fight the six month cycle, lean into it. Fedora moves fast and that’s the point. Run updates regularly rather than letting them pile up, and do the version upgrade with dnf system-upgrade when a new release lands rather than waiting until you’re two versions behind.
Btrfs snapshots come basically free. The default layout is Btrfs, so tools like snapper or even manual snapshots before a big change give you a quick way back if something goes wrong.
Flatpak fills the gaps. Between the official repos, RPM Fusion, and Flathub you can find almost anything. Just be aware you may have both a Fedora Flatpak remote and Flathub, and the Flathub version is usually the one you want.
SELinux is on for a reason, don’t just disable it. If something’s getting blocked, check the logs with ausearch or sealert first. Nine times out of ten there’s a proper fix that doesn’t mean turning the whole thing off.
dnf-automatic if you want hands off updates. You can have it download and optionally apply updates on a schedule, handy on machines you don’t log into every day:
That’s a start. What are your go to Fedora tips? Drop them below.