Fedora 45 hands you two very different installers depending on which ISO you boot. The Server DVD still runs the classic Anaconda hub with its spokes and Done buttons, while the Workstation live image runs the newer Anaconda Web UI inside the desktop session and leaves account creation to GNOME Initial Setup. If you have only ever installed one of them, the other one feels like a different distribution.
This guide walks through a clean install of Fedora 45 Server and Fedora 45 Workstation side by side, with every installer screen captured from real runs. It covers downloading and verifying the ISO, writing a bootable USB, the settings that change between a physical server and a virtual machine, the default partition layouts each edition creates, and the first things to check after the reboot (Cockpit on Server, SSH on Workstation, and where Fedora now keeps its repo files).
Both editions were installed from scratch in September 2026 on Proxmox VMs with UEFI and Secure Boot switched on, and every screen below comes from those two runs.
Fedora 45 Server vs Workstation: pick the right ISO
The two editions share the same packages underneath, but the installer, the storage defaults, and what is running after first boot are different. This table is what we saw on the two test installs, so you can decide before you download 3 to 4 GB of ISO:
| Item | Fedora 45 Server | Fedora 45 Workstation |
|---|---|---|
| ISO type | Offline DVD (about 4.3 GB) or netinstall | Live image (about 2.8 GB) |
| Installer | Anaconda GTK hub and spokes | Anaconda Web UI, 4-step wizard |
| Default storage | XFS on LVM, root capped at 15 GiB | Btrfs with / and /home subvolumes, zstd compression |
/boot filesystem | XFS | ext4 |
| User account created in | The installer (User Creation spoke) | GNOME Initial Setup after reboot |
| Network and hostname | Full static IP editor in the installer | Hostname only; network comes from the live session |
| Remote management | Cockpit on port 9090, enabled | None by default |
| SSH server | Enabled, port 22 open in firewalld | Installed but disabled |
| Packages after install | 747 | 1966 |
| Desktop | None (text console) | GNOME on Wayland |
Pick Server for anything headless: a VM that runs containers, a database box, a home lab node, a bare-metal host you manage through Cockpit or SSH. Pick Workstation for a laptop or desktop you sit in front of. If you want KDE Plasma instead of GNOME, grab the KDE Plasma Desktop edition, which uses the same Web UI installer covered in the Workstation half of this guide.
Hardware requirements
Fedora publishes a low floor and a more realistic recommendation. Here is what the official guidance says next to what our lab VMs used:
| Resource | Technical minimum | Fedora’s recommendation | Our lab VM |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2 GHz dual core, x86_64 or aarch64 | 2 GHz quad core for Workstation | 2 vCPU (Server), 4 vCPU (Workstation), host CPU type |
| RAM | About 1 GiB for Server, 2 GB for Workstation | 4 GB | 4 GB (Server), 8 GB (Workstation) |
| Disk | About 5 GiB for Server, 15 GB for Workstation | 40 GB | 40 GB |
| Firmware | UEFI or legacy BIOS | UEFI | OVMF UEFI, Secure Boot keys enrolled |
| Display (graphical install) | 1024×768 | Higher is more comfortable | 1280×800 |
| USB stick | 4 GB for Workstation, 8 GB for the Server DVD | 8 GB | n/a (ISO attached to the VM) |
The Server install used 2.2 GB of the root filesystem right after installation, and the Workstation install used 4.5 GB. For a Server that runs containers or databases, size the disk for the data, not the OS: the OS footprint barely grows, but /var/lib/containers and database directories do.
Download the Fedora 45 ISO
Fedora publishes every edition on its mirror network. You can grab the ISOs from the Server download page and the Workstation download page, or pull them straight from a Linux box with curl. The command route is handy when you are staging the ISO on a hypervisor like Proxmox, because it also fetches the signed checksum file you need in the next step.
The commands below find the right tree on the mirrors by themselves. They use releases/45 when that directory is published and fall back to the newest Fedora 45 tree under releases/test/ otherwise. The file names are read from the directory listing instead of being typed in by hand, so nothing needs editing when new images replace the current ones.
Set the edition you want (Server or Workstation) and let the script pick the release path:
export EDITION=Server
BASE=https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases
if curl -sfL -o /dev/null ${BASE}/45/${EDITION}/x86_64/iso/; then
export FEDORA_PATH=pub/fedora/linux/releases/45
else
export FEDORA_PATH=pub/fedora/linux/releases/test/$(curl -sL ${BASE}/test/ | grep -oE '45_[A-Za-z]+' | sort -u | tail -1)
fi
echo "FEDORA_PATH=${FEDORA_PATH}"Detect the ISO and checksum file names for that edition, then print them so you can confirm they look right:
LIST=https://dl.fedoraproject.org/${FEDORA_PATH}/${EDITION}/x86_64/iso/
ISO=$(curl -sL ${LIST} | grep -oE "Fedora-${EDITION}-(dvd|Live)[^\"]+\.iso" | head -1)
SUM=$(curl -sL ${LIST} | grep -oE "Fedora-${EDITION}-[^\"]*CHECKSUM" | head -1)
echo "ISO=${ISO} SUM=${SUM}"
[ -n "${ISO}" ] || echo "No ISO found under ${FEDORA_PATH}"For the Server edition the detection printed the DVD image and its checksum file:
ISO=Fedora-Server-dvd-x86_64-45_Beta-1.3.iso SUM=Fedora-Server-iso-45_Beta-1.3-x86_64-CHECKSUMWith EDITION=Workstation the same commands return the Workstation Live ISO and its own CHECKSUM file. Now download both files through download.fedoraproject.org, which redirects you to a nearby mirror:
curl -LO https://download.fedoraproject.org/${FEDORA_PATH}/${EDITION}/x86_64/iso/${ISO}
curl -LO https://download.fedoraproject.org/${FEDORA_PATH}/${EDITION}/x86_64/iso/${SUM}If the redirect lands you on a slow mirror, aria2c -x8 -s8 with the same URL splits the download across several connections. That took the 4 GB Server DVD from a 30 minute estimate down to about four minutes on our link.
Verify the ISO signature and checksum
Skipping this step is how people end up debugging a “broken installer” that is really a truncated download. The CHECKSUM file is signed with the Fedora 45 key, so you check two things: that the checksum file is genuine, and that your ISO matches it. Fetch Fedora’s public keyring first:
curl -O https://fedoraproject.org/fedora.gpgCheck the signature on the checksum file with gpgv:
gpgv --keyring ./fedora.gpg ${SUM}A good file reports a valid signature from the Fedora 45 primary key:
gpgv: Signature made Fri 11 Sep 2026 04:38:09 PM EAT
gpgv: using RSA key 4F50A6114CD5C6976A7F1179655A4B02F577861E
gpgv: Good signature from "Fedora (45) <[email protected]>"The fingerprint to compare against is 4F50 A611 4CD5 C697 6A7F 1179 655A 4B02 F577 861E. Then confirm the ISO itself matches the signed checksum:
sha256sum --ignore-missing -c ${SUM}You want to see OK next to the ISO name:
Fedora-Server-dvd-x86_64-45_Beta-1.3.iso: OK
sha256sum: WARNING: 17 lines are improperly formattedIf you see that “improperly formatted” warning, that’s normal. It refers to the PGP signature lines wrapped around the hashes in the CHECKSUM file, not to your ISO. A real mismatch prints FAILED instead of OK, and in that case download the ISO again before going any further.
Create a bootable USB for a physical install
Skip this section if you are installing into a VM; just attach the ISO as a virtual CD/DVD drive. For bare metal you need a USB stick of at least 8 GB for the Server DVD (the image is 4.29 GB, which does not fit on a stick sold as 4 GB) or 4 GB for Workstation, and everything on it will be erased. On Windows or macOS, Fedora Media Writer is the tool Fedora itself recommends. On Linux, dd does the job. Plug in the stick and identify it first, because the part that trips people up is writing to the wrong disk:
lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL,TRANLook for the device whose size and usb transport match your stick. In this example it is /dev/sdb; replace that with your own device name before running the write. The command reuses ${ISO} from the download step, so run it in the same shell and directory, or swap in the full path to the ISO:
sudo dd if=${ISO} of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress oflag=direct conv=fsyncWrite to the whole device (/dev/sdb), never to a partition like /dev/sdb1. Wait for dd to return before unplugging the stick, since conv=fsync makes it flush everything to the device first.
Physical server vs virtual machine: what changes
The installer screens are identical on bare metal and in a VM. What differs is the firmware, how disks and NICs are named, and which helper packages you want afterwards. These are the things worth checking before you boot the installer:
| Area | Physical server or PC | Virtual machine (KVM, Proxmox, VMware) |
|---|---|---|
| Firmware | Use UEFI mode. Secure Boot can stay on, Fedora’s signed shim and GRUB boot with Microsoft’s keys. Some Secured-core laptops ship with the Microsoft third-party UEFI CA disabled, so enable that option in firmware if the USB refuses to boot. Legacy BIOS still works. | Use OVMF/UEFI (Proxmox: BIOS set to OVMF, machine q35). Secure Boot with pre-enrolled keys booted both editions in our lab. |
| Disk names | nvme0n1 for NVMe, sda for SATA/SAS | sda on VirtIO SCSI, vda on VirtIO Block |
| NIC names | eno1, enp3s0 and similar, based on the firmware index or PCI location | ens18 on Proxmox VirtIO NICs |
| RAID | Prefer Linux software RAID or plain disks. Firmware (fake) RAID has a known reinstall bug with the Server installer, covered at the end of this guide. | Not relevant; redundancy lives on the host storage |
| Graphics | Older NVIDIA cards need the legacy RPM Fusion driver on Workstation | Server: any display. Workstation on Proxmox: QXL or VirtIO GPU, 1280×800 or larger. |
| Guest tools | Not needed | Server installs qemu-guest-agent and open-vm-tools by default. Hyper-V guests need hyperv-daemons added. |
| Faster alternative | n/a | Fedora also ships a ready-made Server KVM qcow2 and Cloud Base images, so you can skip the installer entirely for throwaway VMs |
For reference, both lab VMs ran on Proxmox VE with machine type q35, OVMF firmware with Secure Boot keys enrolled, a VirtIO SCSI single controller, a VirtIO NIC, and the host CPU type. The Server VM used the standard VGA adapter; the Workstation VM used QXL so GNOME would start a graphical session. If you run KVM on a Fedora host instead, the same choices apply in virt-manager, which is covered in our guide to installing KVM on Fedora.
On a physical box, open the firmware setup (usually F2, F10, F12 or Del at power-on), make sure the SATA mode is AHCI rather than RAID unless you really use firmware RAID, and pick the USB stick from the one-time boot menu. On a VM, attach the ISO and put the CD/DVD drive first in the boot order.
Install Fedora 45 Server
Boot the Server DVD and GRUB shows three entries. The highlighted default is “Test this media & install Fedora 45”, which reads the whole ISO before starting. Since you already verified the checksum, press the up arrow and choose “Install Fedora 45” to save a few minutes.
The installer then starts on its language screen.
Choose the installation language
Anaconda guesses your language from your IP address. On our Kenyan lab network it guessed Oromoo (Keeniyaa), not English, and it did the same on the Workstation installer. If your screen opens on a language you did not expect, that’s normal GeoIP behaviour, not a broken ISO. Just pick your language from the list or type it into the search box.
Select English in the left column and English (United States), or your own regional variant, on the right, then click Continue:
Continue takes you to the Installation Summary.
The Installation Summary hub
The Server installer is a hub. Every item is a spoke you open, change, and leave with the Done button in the top left. Items with an orange warning icon must be completed before the Begin Installation button unlocks. On a fresh disk that meant Installation Destination, Root Account and User Creation. Creating an admin user clears both user warnings, even with root left disabled.
Keyboard, Language Support and Time & Date follow the language you chose. The time zone was set to Africa/Nairobi automatically, again from GeoIP. Open Time & Date only if that guess is wrong. Installation Source stays on “Auto-detected installation source” for the DVD, and the default “Install the latest available software updates” option is fine.
Software selection
The Server edition base environment comes with four add-on groups ticked: Container Management, Domain Membership, Guest Agents, and Hardware Support for Server Systems. Headless Management (Cockpit and its plugins) is unticked here, but Cockpit still gets installed and enabled because it is part of the Server edition itself. Leave the defaults unless you know you want a smaller system, in which case “Fedora Custom Operating System” gives you a bare base to build on.
Click Done to return to the summary, then open Installation Destination.
Installation destination and the 15 GiB root
Pick the target disk. On this VM it shows up as a 40 GiB QEMU disk named sda. Automatic partitioning works, but choose Custom once so you can see exactly what Fedora is about to create:
In the Manual Partitioning screen click “Click here to create them automatically”. Fedora 45 Server proposes a 600 MiB EFI partition, a 2 GiB /boot, and an LVM volume group called fedora holding a 15 GiB XFS root. The rest of the disk stays unallocated inside the volume group, which is why “Available space” reads almost zero even though the root is small.
That 15 GiB cap is deliberate. Server keeps free space in the volume group so you can add logical volumes for /var/lib/containers, a database, or backups later, or grow root when you need to. If you would rather have one big root from day one, change Desired Capacity here. Otherwise keep the default and grow it after install, as shown further down. Click Done and review the list of changes:
Click Accept Changes. The installer writes nothing to disk until you press Begin Installation, so you can still back out.
Network and host name
The network was already up through DHCP. For a server you almost always want a fixed address, and it is far easier to set it here than to fix it over a console later. Type a fully qualified host name at the bottom and click Apply, then click Configure, open the IPv4 Settings tab, switch Method to Manual, and add the address, prefix, gateway and DNS servers:
Save the dialog, then flip the Ethernet switch off and back on so the connection picks up the new settings. The right-hand panel should now show the static address and your DNS servers:
Click Done once the address and host name are set.
Root account and admin user
Fedora disables the root account by default, and that is the right choice for most servers. You will do admin work through sudo instead.
Open User Creation and create your admin user. “Add administrative privileges to this user account (wheel group membership)” is ticked already, which is what gives the account sudo rights. Use a strong password, because SSH password logins are allowed by default and this account will be reachable over the network as soon as the machine boots.
Click Done to save the account and return to the summary.
Begin the installation
Back on the hub, every warning icon is gone and the Begin Installation button is active:
Click Begin Installation. The DVD install copied and installed 747 packages, then configured the system and the bootloader:
On our VM with 2 vCPUs and SSD-backed ZFS storage it finished in under 10 minutes. When it finishes, remove the USB stick (or eject the virtual ISO after the VM powers off) and click Reboot System:
The server then reboots into the installed system.
First boot and login
After GRUB you land on a text login. Fedora 45 moved the console to kmscon, which is why the prompt reports pts/0 rather than tty1. Log in with the user you created, or better, SSH in from your workstation.
SSH is enabled and allowed through the firewall, so copying your key over works straight away:
ssh-copy-id [email protected]Check which services the default firewalld zone allows. Server uses its own FedoraServer zone:
sudo firewall-cmd --list-allOnly Cockpit, SSH and the DHCPv6 client are open on a fresh install:
FedoraServer (default, active)
target: default
ingress-priority: 0
egress-priority: 0
icmp-block-inversion: no
interfaces: ens18
sources:
services: cockpit dhcpv6-client ssh
ports:
protocols:
forward: yes
masquerade: no
forward-ports:
source-ports:
icmp-blocks:
rich rules: When you add services later, open their ports the same way. Our firewalld guide for Fedora covers zones, services and rich rules in detail.
Log in to the Cockpit web console
Cockpit listens on TCP port 9090 by default. Browse to https://192.168.1.245:9090 (your server’s address), accept the self-signed certificate warning, and log in with the same user:
The Overview page shows health, usage, and system details. It opens in limited access mode. Click “Turn on administrative access” and enter your password whenever you need to change settings, install updates, or manage storage from the browser:
One storage default is worth revisiting now: the 15 GiB root volume.
Grow the root volume into the free space
Remember the 15 GiB root? Check how much space is still waiting in the volume group:
sudo vgsOn the 40 GiB disk, 22.41 GiB was sitting unused:
VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree
fedora 1 1 0 wz--n-- 37.41g 22.41gIf this box only runs one workload, give all of it to root. The -r flag grows the XFS filesystem in the same step, online, with no reboot:
sudo lvextend -r -l +100%FREE fedora/rootLVM resizes the volume and then calls xfs_growfs for you (the long XFS geometry dump is trimmed here):
File system xfs found on fedora/root mounted at /.
Size of logical volume fedora/root changed from 15.00 GiB (3840 extents) to 37.41 GiB (9577 extents).
Extending file system xfs to 37.41 GiB (40168849408 bytes) on fedora/root...
xfs_growfs /dev/fedora/root
data blocks changed from 3932160 to 9806848
xfs_growfs done
Extended file system xfs on fedora/root.
Logical volume fedora/root successfully resized.XFS can grow but it cannot shrink, so if you plan to carve out separate volumes for containers or databases, use +10G style sizes instead of +100%FREE and leave the rest in the pool.
Update and verify the Server install
Pull the latest updates before you put anything on the box:
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -yOn the first run this installed 14 new packages and upgraded 172, including a newer kernel, for a 673 MiB download:
Transaction Summary:
Installing: 14 packages
Upgrading: 172 packages
Replacing: 173 packages
Total size of inbound packages is 673 MiB. Need to download 673 MiB.Reboot into the new kernel:
sudo systemctl rebootOnce it is back, a quick round of checks confirms the release, the kernel, the grown root volume, the core services, SELinux in enforcing mode, and Secure Boot:
DNF on Fedora 45 is DNF5, so if older dnf habits misbehave, our DNF5 cheat sheet maps the old commands to the new ones.
Install Fedora 45 Workstation
The Workstation ISO boots into a live GNOME session first. Its GRUB menu has the same “Test this media” default as Server, so choose “Start Fedora-Workstation-Live” with the up arrow. After a minute or so, a welcome dialog offers to install Fedora or let you try the live system. Click Install Fedora Linux:
If you close that dialog by accident, search for “Install to Hard Drive” in the Activities overview to reopen the installer.
Welcome: language and keyboard
The Web UI installer is a four-step wizard: Welcome, Installation method, Storage configuration, Review and install. It made the same Oromoo guess from GeoIP as the Server installer. Type your language into the search field and pick it from the suggestions:
The keyboard layout is shown below the language. Change it here if you type on anything other than a US layout, because the same layout is used to unlock an encrypted disk at boot.
Installation method
Choose the destination disk and how to use it. On a blank disk the only choice is “Use entire disk”. When the installer finds free space or an existing operating system, it also offers options to share the disk. Keeping Windows 11 on the same drive? Back up the BitLocker recovery key and shrink C: first, as the Fedora and Windows 11 dual boot guide explains. For a manual layout, the storage editor link at the bottom opens a Cockpit-based partition editor.
Notice the disk size here reads 42.9 GB while the Server installer called the same size disk 40 GiB. The Web UI counts in decimal gigabytes, the GTK installer in binary gibibytes. Same disk, different units.
Storage configuration and disk encryption
The only storage choice on this step is encryption. For a laptop, tick “Encrypt my data” and set a passphrase. You type it at every boot, using the keyboard layout shown on this screen:
We left encryption off on this VM because a passphrase prompt on every boot gets in the way of automated lab work. On a real laptop that leaves the building, turn it on, because it is the difference between losing hardware and losing data.
Review and install
The review page shows the full plan. Fedora 45 Workstation lays the disk out as a 629 MB EFI partition, a 2.15 GB ext4 /boot, and one Btrfs partition holding separate / and /home subvolumes that share all the remaining space. There is no 15 GiB cap like on Server, because both subvolumes draw from the same pool.
The host name defaults to a transient one from DHCP. Click edit next to Hostname to set a permanent name. The dialog notes that the name may contain letters, numbers and dashes, so something like fedora-ws01 is the safe pattern. Click “Erase data and install”.
The install runs through storage configuration, software installation, system configuration and finalization. On our VM with 4 vCPUs it finished in about 10 minutes:
Click Reboot and remove the USB stick or ISO when the machine restarts.
GNOME Initial Setup
Workstation creates your user account on first boot, not in the installer. GNOME Initial Setup starts automatically:
Click Start Setup and step through Privacy (the Location Services toggle) and Time Zone, which was prefilled from GeoIP. Then comes the Third-Party Repositories page. Enabling it adds Google Chrome, the RPM Fusion NVIDIA driver repository, and Steam to your software sources, which is what most desktop users want:
On About You, enter your full name. The username fills in automatically, and you can edit it with the pencil icon. It becomes your home folder name and cannot be changed later, so get it right now:
Set a password on the next page, then click Start Using Fedora Linux. You can take the short GNOME tour or skip it. This first account is an administrator automatically, so sudo works for it straight away.
First look at the Workstation desktop
Fedora 45 Workstation lands on GNOME with the new release wallpaper and runs on Wayland only. There is no GNOME on Xorg session to pick at the login screen anymore.
Open Settings, then System, then About to confirm what you installed. It lists the GNOME Shell version, the Fedora edition, and the kernel:
Before anything else, pull the latest updates, either from the Software app’s Updates tab or from a terminal with sudo dnf upgrade --refresh, and reboot. From there, our things to do after installing Fedora Workstation checklist covers codecs, Flatpak, GNOME extensions, and drivers, and setting up Flathub opens up the rest of the desktop app catalog.
Enable SSH on Workstation
Unlike Server, Workstation ships the SSH server disabled. If you want to reach the machine from another computer, check its status:
systemctl is-enabled sshdA fresh install reports it as disabled:
disabledEnable and start it in one go:
sudo systemctl enable --now sshdYou don’t have to touch the firewall for this. The default FedoraWorkstation firewalld zone already allows the ssh service, so it is reachable as soon as it starts.
Check the storage layout after install
It is worth confirming the layout each edition actually created, especially if you plan to add snapshots or extra volumes. On Server, lsblk shows the LVM stack under the XFS root (captured after growing root):
lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINTSThe Server disk holds the EFI and /boot partitions plus one LVM physical volume:
NAME SIZE FSTYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 40G
├─sda1 600M vfat /boot/efi
├─sda2 2G xfs /boot
└─sda3 37.4G LVM2_member
└─fedora-root 37.4G xfs /
zram0 3.8G swap [SWAP]The same command on Workstation shows a single Btrfs partition mounted twice, once for each subvolume:
NAME SIZE FSTYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 40G
├─sda1 600M vfat /boot/efi
├─sda2 2G ext4 /boot
└─sda3 37.4G btrfs /home
/
zram0 7.7G swap [SWAP]Neither edition creates a swap partition. Both use compressed swap in RAM through zram, sized to the installed memory. Btrfs on Workstation is mounted with compress=zstd:1, which you can confirm with findmnt -no OPTIONS /. That Btrfs layout is exactly what snapshot tools expect, and our guide to Btrfs snapshots with Snapper on Fedora builds on it.
Fixes for problems you may hit
These are the issues that came up in our installs, plus the known Fedora 45 issues that only show up on specific hardware.
The installer opens in the wrong language
Anaconda picks the default language from GeoIP. On a network that geolocates to Kenya, both installers preselected Oromoo (Keeniyaa). Choose your language manually on the first screen.
“/etc/yum.repos.d is empty” after installing Fedora 45
This is a real change, not a broken install. Fedora 45 moved its own repository definitions out of /etc and into /usr:
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/ /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d/On the Server install, the Fedora repos only exist under /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d/:
/etc/yum.repos.d/:
/usr/share/dnf5/repos.d/:
fedora-cisco-openh264.repo
fedora.repo
fedora-updates.repo
fedora-updates-testing.repoThe package signing keys moved the same way, to /usr/share/pki/rpm-gpg/. Third-party repositories still go into /etc/yum.repos.d/ (the Workstation third-party toggle drops its Chrome, NVIDIA and Steam files there), and a file you put in /etc overrides the copy in /usr. Older guides that edit /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo or import keys from /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/ need those paths updated.
System will not boot after reinstalling on firmware RAID
Fedora tracks a known issue where reinstalling Fedora 45 onto Intel firmware RAID (IMSM) with the Server or Everything installer, on legacy BIOS, leaves the system unbootable. The Workstation and KDE Web UI installers are not affected. It shows up when you reclaim space with “Delete All” over a previous Fedora install on that array. The workarounds Fedora lists are to delete and recreate the array in the RAID firmware before installing (which destroys its data), to install onto a standard disk without firmware RAID, or to use the Workstation or KDE image, whose Web UI installer does not hit the bug. The details are in Fedora’s common issues entry.
Older NVIDIA card falls back to nouveau
Maxwell, Pascal and Volta GeForce and Quadro cards (roughly the GTX 745 through GTX 1080 Ti, plus MX100 to MX300 laptop chips) no longer work with the current RPM Fusion akmod-nvidia driver and fall back to nouveau. They need the legacy 580xx branch, as described in Fedora’s common issues entry for older NVIDIA GPUs. The legacy packages live in the full RPM Fusion nonfree repository, not in the NVIDIA-only repo that the Workstation third-party toggle enables, so add RPM Fusion first (our guide on enabling RPM Fusion on Fedora walks through it). Then swap the driver:
sudo dnf remove xorg-x11-drv-nvidia akmod-nvidia
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-580xx akmod-nvidia-580xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-580xx-cuda
sudo akmodsWith Secure Boot on, the module akmods builds is not signed by any key your firmware trusts, so it will not load and you stay on nouveau. RPM Fusion’s Secure Boot howto covers generating a local signing key with sudo kmodgenca -a, importing it with sudo mokutil --import /etc/pki/akmods/certs/public_key.der, and enrolling it in MokManager on the next boot. Do that before rebuilding, then reboot to load the new driver.
setfont or loadkeys stopped working on the console
The Fedora 45 console runs on kmscon instead of the kernel framebuffer console, so setfont and loadkeys have no effect there. Set the keymap with localectl set-keymap and adjust console fonts and sizes in /etc/kmscon/kmscon.conf. SSH sessions and the GNOME terminal are not affected.
If you are coming from an existing Fedora install rather than a blank disk, you don’t need to reinstall at all. An in-place upgrade keeps your data and settings, and it is the same dnf system-upgrade workflow shown in our Fedora 43 to 44 upgrade guide, with the target release number changed.
