Fedora Workstation

This is a living document that might evolve over time.

Why did I switch away from Windows?

• Better terminal
• Package manager
• Less clutter (useless features)
• No AI features
• Gaming support better than ever

Installation & Setup

1. Download the Fedora Workstation ISO
2. Verify the ISO file using official tutorial
3. Flash the ISO onto a USB drive with balenaetcher
4. Install Fedora on PC
5. Use dnf update to update the system after installation

General

• As a System Monitor I installed Mission Center since it is capable of displaying my GPU as well and it kinda resembles the Windows Task Manager.
• To get somewhat of an AirDrop functionality I installed LocalSend.
• My browser of choice became the Zen Browser, because I like the interface the most right now. The Helium browser also looks promising as a privacy focused Chromium based alternative.
• For finance management I installed Portfolio Performance
• I also installed Calibre to manage my eBooks efficiently in one place. This program also enables me to easily send the books to my Kobo Clara for reading.
• OpenRGB works great for my mouse but not my keyboard (sad)
• fastfetch-cli to personalize the terminal experience
• htop as interactive process viewer inside the terminal

Development

Since I will still continue to use my Macbook, I wanted to stream-line some tools for development. Therefore I will still use Homebrew for some Packages (also because HUGO on fedora package manager is outdated).

Since I started fresh with Linux on my PC, I decided to switch from VSCode to the open source alternative VSCodium.

I really want to try game development - so I installed Godot from the steam launcher (yes it is available on steam) as well as Blender and Aseprite. Additionally I also installed GIMP though I will probably use my iPad for most drawing and asset design.

Gaming

Installing Steam was easy, just follow the official Fedora guide and you are good to go. One small problem was with the Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views setting that was crashing Steam when opening it via the launcher or search. Disabling this setting fixed the issue for me.

Of course I installed Prism Launcher so that I can play Minecraft - even if it’s only hype for 2 weeks a year.

For FPS display I got recomended MangoHud by a friend of mine. Just install it with sudo dnf install mangohud and then add mangohud %command% in the launch options of the Steam games. Now you can just toggle the display with Shift_R+F12. To configure the HUD just use MangoJuice, it is a nice graphical configuration tool.

If you want to know if a specific game can run well on Linux, you can do so with ProtonDB. It is by far the best tool to find out about compatibility of games on Linux and the SteamDeck.

For communication in online gaming I installed Discord and TeamSpeak 5 via Flatpak. Most of the times I use Discord but there a some people who still prefer TeamSpeak.

Alternative programs

When you are moving from a Windows machine to a Linux machine there might be some Programs that do not exist or work on Linux. Flathub is probably the Nr. 1 place to find most apps on Linux systems combined with Flatseal to manage permissions. On another note, GNOME has a great list for apps they recommend.

Some interesting and promising looking programs are Portmaster, OpenSnitch, Inkscape, Audacity, Sweet Home 3D, FreeCAD, Warehouse, Ignition, Vitals, Collision and Curtail. These I have not tested and are just here because I thought they might sometime be interesting to try.

The following table depicts the alternative programs I have found. (I have NOT tested all of the alternatives yet) Sometimes there just is no good alternative solution.