Fedora Sway Spin - Post-Install Setup (F44+)

A from-scratch, Sway-first bootstrap for a fresh Fedora 44+ Sway spin install. Written for a tiling-WM beginner coming from GNOME, on AMD APU laptops (amdgpu/Vega, VCN video block) — but harmless on Intel/desktops.

It deliberately does not touch GNOME Shell, install GNOME extensions, or apply GNOME-specific settings that Sway ignores.

Usage

The script changes system files, installs third-party repos and runs dnf — read it first, then run it locally (never curl | sudo bash):

git clone <this-repo> && cd fedora-setup
sudo ./setup.sh

Optional flags:

SCX=1 sudo ./setup.sh            # sched-ext (scx_bpfland) from CachyOS COPR
MS_CORE_FONTS=1 sudo ./setup.sh  # MS core fonts (third-party RPM)
DNS_OVER_TLS=1 sudo ./setup.sh   # DNS-over-TLS for resolved

What it does (in order)

1. DNF tuning — max_parallel_downloads=20, defaultyes=True (both dnf/dnf5 configs).
2. Base upgrade — full dnf upgrade + core group, official repos only.
3. Repositories — RPM Fusion free/nonfree; VS Code, Chrome, Google Cloud CLI (first-party); CachyOS COPR only behind a flag; unused Workstation NVIDIA/Steam repos disabled on AMD. (No Terra/unrar — RAR isn't needed day-to-day; see notes.)
4. Multimedia swap — full ffmpeg + @multimedia group from RPM Fusion.
5. Consolidated install (one transaction) —
   • Sway stack (idempotent on the spin): sway-config-fedora, portals (xdg-desktop-portal-wlr + GTK — screen sharing & file dialogs), cliphist/wl-clipboard, swappy, pavucontrol, kanshi, dunst
   • AMD acceleration: mesa-dri-drivers + mesa-va-drivers-freeworld (Fedora 44 is Mesa 26 — the base VA-API driver now lives in mesa-dri-drivers; freeworld adds the H.264/HEVC codecs; libva-utils gives you vainfo) for VCN decode
   • Power: tlp + tlp-rdw (right choice for Zen+/Picasso — this APU has no power-profiles-daemon support)
   • Apps: Firefox (kept — the spin's Wayland-native default), mpv (RPM Fusion's vlc and gstreamer1-plugin-libav are not built for F44 yet — install VLC later via flatpak install flathub org.videolan.VLC or when RPM Fusion ships it), GNOME Boxes, VS Code, Chrome, LibreOffice + Carlito/Caladea, Distrobox, git, dev toolchain, Zsh (Node.js in F44 is the versioned nodejs24; Starship is not packaged in Fedora 41+ — the zshrc block tolerates its absence)
6. System tweaks — laptop sysctls, Btrfs noatime (backup kept), fstrim timer, journal cap, GRUB timeout 2s, NetworkManager-wait-online off, unneeded services disabled (not masked), fwupd firmware update.
7. Flatpak — Flathub added, Fedora remote removed.
8. GTK/Qt theming — dark mode + window buttons via gschema override; qt6ct/qt5ct.
9. Sway user config (write-once, never overwrites your edits) —
   • ~/.config/sway/config.d/10-usr-input.conf — touchpad tap, natural scroll, middle-emo, dwt (Sway reads libinput; GNOME gsettings do not apply)
   • ~/.config/sway/config.d/40-usr-tools.conf — clipboard history picker ($mod+Shift+v), swappy annotate ($mod+Shift+Print), exec kanshi
   • ~/.config/sway/environment — ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=auto (native Wayland for VS Code/Discord/Slack/Obsidian), QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt6ct
   • ~/.config/kanshi/config — display-profile template
10. Fonts — Fira Code Nerd Font (user-local), Carlito/Caladea, optional MS core fonts.
11. Node toolchain — TypeScript, typescript-language-server, Reasonix CLI as the user (installs into ~/.local/bin, no root-owned system globals).
12. Shell — Zsh default + syntax-highlighting/autosuggestions/Starship, sudo password feedback.
13. DNS — systemd-resolved with Cloudflare/Google, optional DoT — run last so the network restart can't interrupt earlier steps.

Notes for the 3500U / AMD laptop

• VCN 1.0 decodes H.264/HEVC/VP9 in hardware; AV1 is software-decoded on this GPU generation — fine at 1080p in Firefox.
• TLP vs power-profiles-daemon: install only TLP (PPD has no profiles for Zen+).
• WiFi on these boards is often Realtek RTL8821CE — supported in-tree (rtw88_8821ce) on current Fedora kernels, no DKMS needed.
• Chrome on Wayland: the script sets Electron's ozone hint, but Chrome needs its own flag — edit /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop Exec= to add --ozone-platform-hint=auto, or run google-chrome --ozone-platform-hint=auto.
• RAR archives: Fedora's 7zip ships with RAR support disabled (license), and unrar lives only in third-party repos — so if you ever receive a .rar, install unar from the official Fedora repos: sudo dnf install unar (extracts RAR4/RAR5). No repo or flag needed.

Post-run

Reboot, pick the Sway session, then verify:

swaymsg -t get_outputs     # display names/resolution (used by kanshi profiles)
swaymsg -t get_inputs      # touchpad tap/natural scroll active
vainfo                     # VCN 1.0 enumeration
systemctl status tlp --no-pager | head -3

If notifications never appear: systemctl --user enable --now dunst (dunst is D-Bus-activatable in the spin; one-time nudge sometimes needed).