Fedora receives frequent updates and a new release every six months. Regular maintenance keeps your system stable and secure between those upgrades. This guide covers the essential commands and routines.
Update packages with dnf
The primary maintenance command updates all packages.
dnf update
Dnf resolves dependencies intelligently and can handle kernel updates without issues. Run this command weekly. If you prefer automatic updates, install and enable dnf-automatic.
dnf install dnf-automatic
systemctl enable --now dnf-automatic.timer
This timer downloads and applies updates silently in the background. It respects your working hours by default. You can check its schedule with systemctl status dnf-automatic.timer.
Install and remove packages cleanly
Installing a package pulls in dependencies automatically.
dnf install htop neovim git
Remove a package and its unused dependencies.
dnf remove htop
Use dnf autoremove periodically to clean up orphaned dependencies that were pulled in by removed packages.
dnf autoremove
Fedora groups related packages into functional groups. List available groups and install them as a set.
dnf group list
dnf group install "Development Tools"
Clean the dnf cache
Dnf caches metadata and package downloads. Over time this cache grows. Clean it with dnf clean all. Doing this before or after a large update is good practice.
dnf clean all
If you encounter repository metadata errors, cleaning the cache and running dnf update again usually resolves them.
Enable useful repositories
Fedora ships with a curated set of repositories but some useful software requires extra repos.
RPM Fusion provides codecs, NVIDIA drivers, and other software that Fedora excludes.
dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
COPR is Fedora’s community build system. It is similar to the AUR but packages are prebuilt and hosted on Fedora’s infrastructure.
dnf copr enable user/project
dnf install package
Manage Flatpak applications
Fedora includes Flatpak support out of the box with Flathub configured. Update Flatpak applications alongside system packages.
flatpak update
List installed Flatpak applications and remove what you no longer use.
flatpak list
flatpak uninstall appname
Run flatpak uninstall --unused to remove leftover runtimes that no application depends on.
Upgrade between Fedora releases
When a new Fedora version releases, use the system upgrade plugin.
dnf upgrade --refresh
dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade
dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=42
The last command downloads all packages for the new release. When the download finishes, reboot into the upgrade.
dnf system-upgrade reboot
The upgrade process takes 10 to 30 minutes depending on your system and internet speed. Do not interrupt it.
Regular maintenance schedule
Weekly: dnf update or rely on dnf-automatic.timer
Monthly: dnf autoremove, dnf clean all, flatpak update
Pre upgrade: review fedoramagazine.org for release notes and known issues
Fedora rewards a light touch. A few minutes of maintenance each month keeps your desktop fresh without surprises.
References
- DNF Documentation: https://dnf.readthedocs.io/
- Fedora Documentation: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/
- RPM Fusion: https://rpmfusion.org/