Gaming on your Linux desktop, trying alternative desktop environments, and tweaking little details such as your boot screen. Yes, it’s been a whole year again! What a great time to look back at the most popular articles on the Fedora Magazine written by our awesome contributors.
Let’s dive into the first article of the “Best of 2018” series — this time focused on Fedora Workstation and how you like to use it on your Linux desktop.
Install NVIDIA GPU on your system
Are you a gamer or a researcher? Having a strong GPU might be crucial for you.
This article will guide you through the installation of an NVIDIA GPU — both the hardware and the drivers — on your Fedora Workstation. Ready for science and some fun?
Install Steam or Chrome from 3rd-party repositories
Now that we have a powerful GPU installed on our system, let’s play some games! Did you know you can install Steam, a popular gaming platform, on Fedora?
If you’re not a gamer, you might appreciate a wide variety of other popular software such as Google Chrome that can be installed from the third-party repos.
This article gives you all the information you need about the new third-party repositories. You’ll learn how to enable them and how to consume the apps using Gnome Software or DNF.
New third-party repositories — easily install Chrome & Steam on Fedora
Get started with openbox
One favorite perk of using a Linux desktop is the variety of different window managers. And there are many different ones available for Fedora.
This article covers openbox — a lightweight window manager focusing on minimal desktop experience.
And since there are so many window managers, here is a small bonus you: 5 cool tiling window managers — using tiles instead of windows.
Change your Plymouth bootup theme
And in case you like visually tweaking your system in any way possible, don’t forget about your boot screen!
This article shows you how to change the Plymouth bootup theme.
knstn
Can i just log in OpenBox, right-click and open a functional terminal?
Or do i have to set display manager, fonts etc?
I am low on RAM always…
twkamz
Usually openbox requires quite a bit of tweaking to be able to use it comfortably. If you want to put the least amount of work into configuring it, at least you should look into menu generators. Install one of these and it will automatically generate a menu with all your applications categorized when you right-click your desktop.
More info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/openbox#Generators
Fernando "Eagle" De Sousa
I recently had to return to a debian based distribution, my Fedora installation had been incompatible with a CAD program and the alternative according to the forums consulted was to outdate a library and lock it to never update, even though it did not work yet causing an error in the initial lingin for the graphical environment. I loved this distribution for fluency and vanguard. Perhaps its greatest asset is its greatest disadvantage since, at the time of its time, it gives no space for older applications (and the CAD program worked well in version 28). Goodbye Fedora, maybe one day I will come back, after all I loved the way the user treats. Sincerely. Fernando “Eagle” De Sousa.
Paul W. Frields
@Fernando: Is there a reason you couldn’t run an older Fedora installation on a virtual machine and install your CAD program there? That way you get the best of both worlds. 😉
Tim
Fernando, having to back date a library and locking it against updates may be an unsafe practice. If you’re forced to I’d recommend looking at packaging the application yourself as an AppImage or Flatpak. You can do this even with binary or proprietary software packages. This would allow you to isolate the older dependencies the application requires in a way that only affects that application.
The preferred solution would be to work with the upstream (makers of the CAD program) to allow the application to work with the newer version of the library. If it’s an open source project this should be more than possible. If it’s a proprietary application – I feel your pain.
Gregory Carter
Mmmm…installing NVidia GPU’s is not something I would promote in a LINUX Desktop system. If LINUX is going to be a decent desktop, you have to have a continuous engineering refinement and workflow at the source code level so security patching, updates and improvements don’t cause people problems.
That especially includes gaming performance given the fact MESA and the OpenGL efforts are just now starting to bear fruit as the open source world begins to approach on par status with OpenGL 4.5/4.6 conformance on modern AMD GPU hardware.
I would promote and recommend AMD GPU’s for everything, and put Nvidia dead last.
Paul W. Frields
@Gregory: While it would be wonderful if more open GPUs were ubiquitous, the fact remains that a lot of hardware ships with NVidia. We can’t ignore millions of users because of the hardware they’re stuck with.
suvayu
If it’s about serving the users, why leave out AMD GPUs entirely from the suggestions? Specially since they are supportive of the FOSS community, this seems rather backwards. Despite being a linux gamer, I have stayed away from NVidia for close to 10 yrs.
With their latest Vega 10 integrated chipsets, they really are at the forefront of budget gaming. And the best part is, Fedora 28 (with updates) and Fedora 29 (at release) fully supports these (as well as the pricier alternatives).
Leaving that out is a great disservice to the community. This is perplexing since on the other hand Fedora takes such a hard Free stance, we still need RPMFusion for decent multimedia support!
arakan94
Stuck with? They bought it (often because someone told them that Nvidia is “good” and AMD is “bad”). I am not saying we should punish people for not being FOSS-friendly, but we certainly shouldn’t invest anything in making usage of closed stuff easier.
If they want to use Nvidia, they can do it. And there are plenty of compromised distros that will help them – like Ubuntu. I love and chose Fedora because it’s different. It’s FOSS and I want it to stay that way.
Like our great leader said – Fuck Nvidia. Until they put their drivers into kernel and start supporting open standards (like FreeSync), they will be ignored by any FOSS enthusiast.
Mercutio
There’s quite a bit of grandstanding (to who though?) in your post. The fact of the matter is that excluding current and potential users, especially that number in the millions is a good way to turn your distribution into a ghost town to appease a vocal minority. Should we also ignore users that don’t use LibreBoot? How about people running iwlwifi? If you truly care about something being 100% FOSS you would be running GuixSD, Parabola, Trisquel, or similar that has all proprietary blobs removed.
I think your “fearless leader” should be Richard Stallman from your statements, and not Linus Torvalds. If you think Linus shares the same sentiments toward FOSS vs proprietary software you would be mistaken as he follows a pragmatic “best tool for the job” philosophy instead of 100% mandating FOSS.
While I believe that FOSS is the way to go, treating users like lesser people because of their hardware choices is a good way to push them right back to Windows.
MH
@Mercutio
http://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/freed-ora.en.html