Setting up Fedora on a Dell XPS 17
Here are some of my steps setting up Fedora with Gnome on a Dell XPS 17 9730.
I got one because the motherboard of my XPS 15 died and they didn't have them in stock, so they sent me a new laptop. I'm now making the switch to Fedora (from Manjaro), because it's much more stable and dnf is just great (also, my fingerprint works out of the box now).
Basic installation​
I installed Fedora with Gnome using Ventoy and the latest ISO from the official site or use the Fedora Media Writer.
When installed, do sudo dnf update, setup the fingerprint, connectivity, a wallpaper, dark theme and mouse settings.
RPM Fusion setup​
RPM Fusion provides software that the Fedora Project or Red Hat doesn't want to ship.
# Install RPM Fusion
sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
# Install appstream data for rpm fusion (so that packages show up in Gnome Software)
sudo dnf install rpmfusion-nonfree-appstream-data rpmfusion-free-appstream-data
Setup fingerprint​
My fingerprint worked out of the box, but while trying to setup the reader for two accounts at the same time, I broke it and had to reset the storage of the Goodix device. This thread (or rather the program from this answer) solved the issue for me.
Enable wayland and fractional scaling​
If echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE does not show wayland, make sure to set WaylandEnable=true in /etc/gdm/custom.conf.
Enable fractional scaling with gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']".
Log out and in again.
Nvidia setup​
Find the compatible driver for the GPU model here and install them.
Some information about Nvidia Optimus can be found here.
Setup electron apps to use wayland​
The following flags will start an electron app on native Wayland (place them inside ~/.config/electron-flags.conf):
--enable-features=UseOzonePlatform
--ozone-platform=wayland
--force-dark-mode
--enable-features=WebUIDarkMode
--enable-features=VaapiVideoEncoder,VaapiVideoDecoder,CanvasOopRasterization
--enable-zero-copy
--enable-raw-draw
--use-vulkan
--enable-features=WaylandWindowDecorations
This script will append these flags to any program launched with it (save this as a file ~/.local/share/applications/launch-electron.sh):
#!/bin/bash
app="$1"
shift
config="$HOME/.config"
appcfg="$config/$(basename "$app")-flags.conf"
electroncfg="$config/electron-flags.conf"
if [[ -f "$appcfg" ]]; then
flags="$(cat $appcfg)"
elif [[ -f "$electroncfg" ]]; then
flags="$(cat $electroncfg)"
fi
"$app" $@ $flags
Install a few electron apps:
sudo dnf install unityhub code discord
# VSCode (https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux)
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
sudo sh -c 'echo -e "[code]\nname=Visual Studio Code\nbaseurl=https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/vscode\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc" > /etc/yum.repos.d/vscode.repo'
dnf check-update
sudo dnf install code
Now to launch any of these apps natively on Wayland, copy its desktop file (probably /usr/share/applications/$app.desktop) into ~/.local/share/applications append /home/username/.local/share/applications/launch-electron.sh after every Exec= in the file.
Now starting an application from Gnome or with gtk-launch $app will pass all flags from electron-flags.conf.
Gnome Extensions​
Install Extension Manager to install:
- Clipboard Indicator
- I couldn't get CopyQ to work on wayland (not as nice but it's fine for now)
- Just Perfection
- Preset: Super Minimal
- Panel in Overview: On
- OSD: On
- Workspace Popup: On
- Workspace Switcher: On
- Animation: Fastest
- run or raise
- Example config (the
brave-...are installed PWAs):# Terminal
<Super>t,gnome-terminal,gnome-terminal-server
<Super><Shift>t,gnome-terminal
# Files
<Super>e,nautilus --new-window,org.gnome.Nautilus
<Super><Shift>e,nautilus --new-window
# Bitwarden
<Super>x,gtk-launch com.bitwarden.desktop.desktop,Bitwarden
# Code
<Super>c,gtk-launch code,/Code|code-url-handler/
<Super><Shift>c,gtk-launch code
# Spotify
<Super>m,gtk-launch brave-pjibgclleladliembfgfagdaldikeohf-Default,brave-pjibgclleladliembfgfagdaldikeohf-Default
# Brave
<Super>b,gtk-launch brave-browser,brave-browser
<Super><Shift>b,gtk-launch brave-browser
# WhatsApp
<Super>w,gtk-launch brave-hnpfjngllnobngcgfapefoaidbinmjnm-Default,brave-hnpfjngllnobngcgfapefoaidbinmjnm-Default
# Discord
<Super>d,gtk-launch Discord,Discord
# Unity
<Super>u,gtk-launch unityhub,Unity
# And more...
- Example config (the
ZSH setup​
Oh my zsh​
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Some nice plugins are git zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-history-substring-search zsh-autosuggestions and a nice theme is powerlevel10k.
Increase zsh history size​
Append the following to the end of ~/.zshrc:
HISTSIZE=999999999
SAVEHIST=$HISTSIZE
More configuration...
Neovim setup​
Setup packer:
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wbthomason/packer.nvim ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer/start/packer.nvim
Some nice plugins are wbthomason/packer.nvim, kylechui/nvim-surround, numToStr/Comment.nvim.
More setup...
Theme old GTK applications​
To make most applications look more modern follow steps from here for normal and flatpak apps.
Apply better settings to GDM login screen​
- Install GDM Settings
- Click three dots -> Load session settings
- Login Screen -> Disable "Enable Logo"
- Apply
Change the bootsplash​
# List themes
plymouth-set-default-theme --list
# Set theme (i. e. spinner), the -R rebuilds the initrd
sudo plymouth-set-default-theme -R spinner
# Remove the watermark from the splash
cd /usr/share/plymouth/themes
sudo cp -r spinner spinner_adfree
cd spinner_adfree
sudo rm watermark.png
sudo mv spinner.plymouth spinner_adfree.plymouth
sudo nvim spinner.plymouth # Change occurences of spinner to spinner_adfree
sudo plymouth-set-default-theme -R spinner
Setup hibernation​
If systemctl hibernate does not work because of insufficient swap space, try the following.
Determine the amount of swap space you need, which would be the amount of RAM the PC has (free -h) plus the amount of reserved ZRAM (swapon --show) plus 2GiB extra. In my case this would be 42GiB, so 43008 bytes in total.
Use a tool like gparted while live booting to shrink the root partition and create a partition using linux-swap as filesystem.
Boot back into Fedora. Now the system could automatically pick the partition up (verify with swapon --show). If it doesn't, use:
sudo mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p4 # Use the correct device here
sudo swapon /dev/nvme0n1p4 # Use the correct device here
Now, to make sure, the swap is mounted on startup, add an entry to /etc/fstab (find the UUID with lsblk -f):
UUID=<swap-partition-uuid> none swap defaults 0 0
Now, add the resume module to the initramfs by creating a file /etc/dracut.conf.d/resume.conf:
add_dracutmodules+=" resume "
Run sudo dracut --regenerate-all --force to rebuild the initramfs.
Verify that the resume module shows up when running sudo lsinitrd -m.
Now, add resume=UUID=<swap-partition-uuid> to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX in /etc/default/grub and run sudo grub2-mkconfig to confirm the changes.
Hibernation with systemctl hibernate should now work.
Fix sound issues​
I only had Dummy Output as my speaker, but this answer finally solved the issue for me.
Fix lag after bluetooth device idles​
If the mouse cursor lags after the device has been idling for a few seconds, this kernel parameter will fix the issue:
Add btusb.enable_autosuspend=0 to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX in /etc/default/grub, run sudo grub2-mkconfig and reboot to apply the changes.
Useful links​
More setup​
sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries" # C / C++
sudo dnf install rust cargo # Rust
# Node / npm
curl -fsSL https://fnm.vercel.app/install | bash
# https://github.com/Schniz/fnm#shell-setup
fnm install --lts
npm i -g yarn
# Platform IO (https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/core/installation/methods/installer-script.html#super-quick-macos-linux)
curl -fsSL -o get-platformio.py https://raw.githubusercontent.com/platformio/platformio-core-installer/master/get-platformio.py
python3 get-platformio.py
# Udev rules (https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/core/installation/udev-rules.html)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/platformio/platformio-core/develop/platformio/assets/system/99-platformio-udev.rules | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-platformio-udev.rules
# Package manager GUI
sudo dnf install dnfdragora
# I had to fix https://github.com/manatools/dnfdragora/issues/152
# Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o install-docker.sh
cat install-docker.sh # verify script
sh install-docker.sh --dry-run # verify install commands
sh install-docker.sh # installation
sudo systemctl enable --now docker # start service
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER # add user to docker group
sudo dnf install steam
...