Things to do after installing Fedora 22 Workstation

I have been playing with Fedora 22 for over a week now. As we all know, Fedora is strict when it comes to FOSS compliance. Compared to beginner friendly distributions, installing essential and familiar non-FOSS compliant software might take an extra step or two. But in the end, it will reward you with a secure, solid and a cutting edge OS.
I posted this guide to help new Fedora users configure their newly installed OS (Fedora Workstation) easily.




1.  Update the OS

First thing you want to do is to update Fedora. You can easily do this by going to the terminal and typing in

sudo dnf update 



2.  Enable RPMFusion repo

In order to have access to packages that Fedora didn't include by default, we need to add the RPMFusion repository. This repository includes non-FOSS compliant packages such as proprietary video drivers and multimedia codecs.
To do this, go to the RPMFUsion site -  http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/

Click on the RPM Fusion free for Fedora 22 link. Firefox will then prompt you how you would like to open the file. Just choose the default (Software install). A new window should open up. Just click on "Install".

Once done, click on the RPM Fusion nonfree for Fedora 22 link and follow the same steps to configure the repository.

Do another update (Step 1) and reboot the system.



3.  Install the Gnome tweak tool

The Gnome tweak tool will enable you to add functionalities to and customize your Gnome desktop. This can be done by clicking on Activities (or press the super key) and then search for Software. Once the Software manager window pops up, search for tweak then install the Tweak Tool



4.  Install Flash 
To install Flash, open a terminal then copy and paste the commands below one by one.

sudo rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-x86_64-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux

sudo dnf update

sudo dnf install flash-plugin nspluginwrapper alsa-plugins-pulseaudio libcurl

5.  Install multimedia CoDecs

In order to play movies and mp3 on your system, you need to install the proper codecs. Open a terminal then copy and paste the command below. 


sudo dnf install gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg



6.  Install multimedia players

My top choice for Fedora Workstation is either SMPlayer or Gnome MPlayer (I had video playback issues with VLC).

To install SMPlayer, open a terminal then copy and paste the command
sudo dnf install smplayer

To install Gnome MPlayer, open a terminal then copy and paste the command
sudo dnf install gnome-mplayer

You can also install VLC by doing
sudo dnf install vlc

Clementine and Banshee are very good music players. Do one or both of the commands below to install them.
sudo dnf install clementine
sudo dnf install banshee



7.  Install Google Chrome

First step is to enable the Google Chrome repository. Open a terminal then issue the su command to switch to administrator.
Now copy and paste the commands (all 8 lines) below to the terminal.

cat << EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo
[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome - \$basearch
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/\$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
EOF


Now, you may need to update the system
dnf update

Finally, you can install Google Chrome by doing

dnf install google-chrome-stable



 8.  Install Skype

Download the RPM file from

http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-linux/

Select Fedora 16 32 bit and choose to save the file instead of opening it via Software

Install dependencies via terminal

sudo dnf install alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 libQtCore.so.4 libQtDBus.so.4 libQtGui.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4 libQtXml.so.4 libXss.so.1 libXv.so.1 qtwebkit

Install Skype

Go to the directory where the rpm file was saved via Terminal. By default it should go to the Downloads folder

cd Downloads 

Then install the rpm file 

sudo rpm -Uhv [rpm file]
(In my case, rpm -Uvh skype-4.3.0.37-fedora.i586.rpm)
 


9.  Install PLAYONLINUX
PlayonLinux will let you install additional software not native to Linux such as MS Office and a variety of games. This process also installs Wine, which is needed to run most Windows programs in Linux.
Just like what we did on step 7, Open a terminal and switch to adminstrator using the su command. Then copy and paste all 8 lines below to the terminal.

cat << EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/playonlinux.repo
[playonlinux]
name=PlayOnLinux Official repository
baseurl=http://rpm.playonlinux.com/fedora/yum/base
enable=1
gpgcheck=0
gpgkey=http://rpm.playonlinux.com/public.gpg
EOF

You may need to update your system
dnf update

Then install PlayonLinux
dnf install playonlinux



After doing these steps your system should now have Flash, Skype, Chrome and Multimedia players configured properly.
Good start, eh? Now you need to install additional software, but I'll leave that to you :)