Hi, I am recently trying out fedora with xfce spin. I don’t have prior experience with rpms/yum/dnf.
Many packages I am used to are not available in dnf, and I find no close equivalent.
I prefer to use the system package manager to whatever extent possible to keep things organized. Can I add things in some way manually? What is preferred?
git repos: make / shell scripts / add a symlink to path
3rd party package manager like pip. cargo etc
rpms — can I install any old rpm?
appimage, flatpack, snaps (dont like these)
fonts, themes, icons, other non executables
Is there any way to track for updates?
Please point me towards any documentation that isn’t simply finger wagging about installing stuff not available in main repos.
Maybe some info about how to add to main repos if that’s plausible.
Flatpak is the preferred way to install graphical applications for Fedora rather than appimages and snaps. There is also Copr. The advantage is that once you add a Copr repo, it is tracked by dnf and you can update it with a single upgrade command. They are unofficial and created by Fedora users, so you should only add repos you trust.
Welcome to Fedora
Please note that, depending on where you come from, some packages are simply named differently but are available in the main Fedora (rpm) repos.
Others may be excluded due to licensing issues or similar. They are often found in the rpmfusion repos which you need to enable once.
For everything else I’d say it depends:
Fonts, themes etc are a personal choice often best installed as a user (e.g. clicking on a font file should open a font manager which does the install)
packages for project development are best installed in specific environments (pipx and the like), or per user (pip etc)
system packages: some extras can be found on copr, which provides extra rpm repos. Advantage: updates come with your normal dnf update
flatpaks: the whole can of worms (apps) from different sources
With pip, flatpak etc you’ll have to take care of updates (flatpak update etc), and you have the option to/should install these as user (-U, --user).
With pip, flatpak, copr etc please make sure you know what source the individual package comes from and make an informed decision about trust.
appimage works as a last resort I’d say (no update mechanism). snaps I’d stay away from on Fedora (lack of integration, wrong ecosystem).
There are many differences between fedora and other distros.
Package names are often different, so if you were to provide specific apps (packages) that you wish to install we may be able to provide the same package with the fedora package name for installation.
Dnf works differently than apt, pacman, or other package managers, and fedora has both the gui software manager and dnf on the cli for package management.
Repos are relatively easy to manage. One option has already been mentioned (copr) but there are flatpaks as well as various other repos providing packages via rpm for installation.
Provide an app (package) list that you wish to install and we probably can provide the means to install them.
dnfdragora is the graphical software manager where is missing some love of a developer.
But if you are not scared of the terminal dnf is quite powerful.
dnf list \*appname* you can just put the command name like tre
of even better dnf search appname this way you mostly find the package name if the app is available.
If you need more information/description of a package use dnf info packagename
dnf repolist shows you the repositories you are using.
