Fedora 23 was released on 3rd of November. This article was written for Fedora 22. However steps described in this article can be used for Fedora 23 workstation as well.
Finally, Fedora Project announced release of Fedora 22 the latest stable release of Popular Bleeding Edge GNU/Linux distribution sponsored by Open Source giant RedHat.
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| Fedora 22 Workstation Desktop Just after installation |
Fedora is very strict with it's ideology. So it does not ship any non-free components with it, except some proprietary blobs included in the Linux Kernel which are essential to support some Hardware. So it is not necessary that basic Fedora installation will suit for your day to day activities unless you make some changes in it.
In this post, I would like to share some steps to tweak Fedora 22 Workstation, to match with your requirements.
Tweak your Fedora 22 using Fedy Utility(GUI)
1. Configure 'Tap to Click' for Touchpads(Laptops Only)
Tap to Click is one of the important ability of touchpad, which will allow you to perform click operation without explicitly using click button provided with touchpad. This ability is not enabled in Fedora by default.
To enable this property, launch menu window, either by clicking on Activities on top left corner of window or by hitting Windows/Super/Meta/Command key on Keyboard. Then, type touch in menu window, which will show you one application Mouse & Touchpad. Open that application by clicking on it. Now make tick mark on Tap to Click option. You may also uncheck Two Finger Scroll and check Natural Scrolling if you prefer.
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| Configuring Touchpad in Fedora 22 |
2. Configure Shortcuts
Fedora GNOME comes with a lot of handy shortcuts which make your life easier. However, If you prefer, you may also configure some additional shortcuts. In this section, I will demonstrate configuring shortcut for opening terminal by applying Super + T key combination.
To configure shortcuts, first open menu window, either by clicking on Activities on top left corner of window or by hitting Windows/Super/Meta/Command key on Keyboard. Then search for keyboard. It will show you an application named Keyboard. Open that application by clicking on icon. Now select Shortcuts in newly opened window.
Now click on + button on bottom of window. Which will show a prompt asking for name of instruction, and command to be executed. Name can be anything, but command should be proper. In our case I choose name as Gnome Terminal and command is gnome-terminal. Then click on OK button.
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| Adding a custom shortcut |
This will add a shortcut to our shortcut list with key combination as disabled. Now click on 'Disabled' and give required key combination. In our case, it is Supert + T.
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| Configuring custom Shortcut |
Thus we are done. Now we can open terminal just by applying Super + T key combination. You may configure additional shortcuts as you wish.
3. Remove Unnecessary software
Fedora comes with a lot of pre installed software. It is not necessary that you will require all of these software. Removing these unnecessary software will help to Reduce System Load and to Save bandwidth while updating system.
Personally I prefer to remove following software. You can have your own choice.
- evolution
- rhythmbox
- empathy
- gnome-maps
We can remove these software by using dnf utility. Open terminal and execute following command
$ sudo dnf remove evolution rhythmbox empathy gnome-maps -y
[password]
[password]
Now remove unused dependencies by executing following command
$ sudo dnf autoremove -y
[password if asks]
[password if asks]
4. Update your system
It is often told that Fedora is a bleeding edge system. Means Fedora provides continuous updates which will fix bugs or loop holes present in your system. It is a good practice to keep your system up-to-date.
For updating your system, open terminal and execute following command
$ sudo dnf update -y
This will make your Fedora installation up-to-date.
5. Configure RPMFusion Repositories
It is already mentioned that, Fedora is very strict with it's ideologies. So it does not ship any non-free components with it. Moreover, official repositories does not provide some essential software containing non-free components(For example multimedia codecs). So it is necessary to install some 3rd party repositories which will provide us some essential software. Luckily RPMFusion repositories allows us to install additional software which are not provided in Fedora official repositories.
For configuring RPMFusion repositories in your system, open terminal and execute following command.
$ sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-22.noarch.rpm
This will configure RPMFusion free repository in your system.6. Install Multimedia Codecs/Plugins
Since most of the currently used media formats are proprietary, you need to install proprietary multimedia codecs/plugins for supporting these media formats. RPMFusion provides as all essential proprietary multimedia codecs.For installing multimedia codecs in your system, execute following command in your system.
$ sudo dnf install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-extras gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg gstreamer1-libav gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld gstreamer1-plugins-base-tools gstreamer1-plugins-good-extras gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1
7. Install Adobe Flash Player
Some multimedia contents in internet is provided in Adobe Flash Format, which is a proprietary format and you may require adobe flash player to see those contents. Alternatively you may also try gnash which is not as efficient as Adobe Flash Player however.
For installing adobe flash player, go to official download page, the download adobe flash player by selecting rpm for other linux option from drop down box. Then open downloaded .rpm file. It will be opened using gnome software and it can be installed just clicking on install button and then providing password when asked.
8. Install VLC media player
Fedora 22 comes with a media player by default. Ie gnome videos which was previously known as totem. If you're happy with that, you may safely skip this step.
However if you prefer to have world's most widely used media player VLC in your system you can install it.
Since we have already configured RPMFusion repositories, we can install vlc media player by executing following command on terminal
$ sudo dnf install vlc -y
[password]
[password]
9. Install google chrome
Fedora 22 comes with Firefox web browser by default. If you are happy with that, you may safely skip this step.
However if you prefer to have popular web browser google chrome in your system, visit official download page of google chrome here and download .rpm installer for google chrome, either 32 bit or 64 bit according to the OS installed in your system.
Then install lsb and libXscrnsaver by running following command in terminal.
Then install lsb and libXscrnsaver by running following command in terminal.
$ sudo dnf install lsb libXScrnSaver -y
[password]
[password]
Then open downloaded .rpm file. It will be opened using gnome
software and it can be installed just clicking on install button and
then providing password when asked.
Now It's your turn to explore
Now your Fedora system is ready with most essential software. However, in this article, we have only listed some general purpose software. If you are working with some special fields it's your turn to install additional software as you need. In case any concerns, please let me know in comment section.