IntelliJ IDEA running on Fedora takes about two minutes once the JetBrains Toolbox App is in place, and PyCharm installs just as easily from a plain tarball. Fedora does not package either IDE, so the choice is between Toolbox, JetBrains’ own tarballs and the Flathub builds, and the three behave differently once you open a project.
Below you’ll install Toolbox, IntelliJ IDEA and PyCharm, wire them to Fedora’s OpenJDK and Python, and see where the Flatpak sandbox gets in the way. Built and run on Fedora 45 Workstation in October 2026 with IntelliJ IDEA 2026.2.3, PyCharm 2026.2.3 and Toolbox 3.9.
Choose Toolbox, tarball or Flatpak
Use Toolbox unless you have a reason not to. It installs and updates every JetBrains IDE from one window, keeps them in your home directory and needs no root. The tarball suits a single IDE you want system-wide, and the Flathub build suits people who want everything sandboxed and do not mind the limits below.
| Method | Where it installs | Updates | Sees Fedora’s JDK and Python | Size measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toolbox App | ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps | Toolbox offers them, or applies them itself if you switch on automatic updates | Yes | IntelliJ IDEA 4.3 GB |
| Tarball | /opt/<ide>, your choice | Manual: unpack each new build into a clean directory | Yes | PyCharm 3.6 GB |
| Flathub | /var/lib/flatpak | flatpak update | No, it gets the sandbox’s own | IntelliJ IDEA 4.3 GB plus a 1.7 GB SDK runtime |
JetBrains no longer publishes separate Community editions. IntelliJ IDEA became one unified product in late 2025, and JetBrains’ release API lists no Community builds after that change. The free core features now live in the main download, so every route below installs that one product. Flathub still carries a community-packaged open-source build, listed as IntelliJ IDEA Open Edition, which this guide doesn’t cover.
Install the JetBrains Toolbox App
Toolbox ships as a tarball with a native binary, not the AppImage older guides describe, so you do not need FUSE for it: fuse-libs wasn’t installed on the test machine and Toolbox ran anyway, and the AppImage setup on Fedora does not apply here. Grab the current download link from JetBrains’ release API so the command keeps working as versions move; install jq first with sudo dnf install jq if it’s missing.
TBA_URL=$(curl -s "https://data.services.jetbrains.com/products/releases?code=TBA&latest=true&type=release" | jq -r '.TBA[0].downloads.linux.link')
echo "$TBA_URL"
curl -sSL -o /tmp/jetbrains-toolbox.tar.gz "$TBA_URL"On the test machine the echo printed https://download.jetbrains.com/toolbox/jetbrains-toolbox-3.9.0.88839.tar.gz, a 148 MB file. Unpack it into a directory under your home, since Toolbox runs as your user and updates itself in place.
mkdir -p ~/.local/opt/jetbrains-toolbox
tar -xzf /tmp/jetbrains-toolbox.tar.gz -C ~/.local/opt/jetbrains-toolbox --strip-components=1
~/.local/opt/jetbrains-toolbox/bin/jetbrains-toolboxRun that last line from a terminal inside your desktop session. The first run sets up three things:
- Write a launcher to
~/.local/share/applications. - Add an autostart entry to
~/.config/autostart. - Install a
jetbrainsdhelper that handlesjetbrains://links.
Started from a plain SSH login with neither DISPLAY nor WAYLAND_DISPLAY set, it still wrote all three, logged “Skipping action due to headless environment” in ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/logs/toolbox.latest.log and exited without a window, so launch it from the desktop.
After that, JetBrains Toolbox shows up in the Activities search like any app. It opens as a panel on the right, asks you to accept the user agreement and offers an optional usage-statistics box you can leave unticked.
Expect Toolbox to start minimized ten seconds after every login from now on, because its autostart entry carries a ten-second delay and a --minimize flag. That background copy is what notices new IDE builds and offers them; JetBrains documents an “Update all tools automatically” switch in Toolbox’s settings if you want it to install them without asking.
Install IntelliJ IDEA from Toolbox
Scroll the Tools tab to IntelliJ IDEA and click Install. There’s a single entry, with no Community or Ultimate split, and RustRover, GoLand and PyCharm sit in the same list. Each IDE installs into its own folder, so you can add PyCharm here later and manage both from the same window.
Download and unpack took about two minutes on a fast line, and the IDE used 4.3 GB under ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/intellij-idea. Toolbox also wrote an idea launcher script and added its scripts directory to your PATH by appending a line to both ~/.bash_profile and ~/.profile.
Log out and back in before you rely on that PATH change, because profile files are only read by new login shells. Then check that the shell finds the launcher:
command -v ideaYou should see a path ending in JetBrains/Toolbox/scripts/idea, which means idea . opens the current directory as a project from any terminal. Activities also lists IntelliJ IDEA once the install finishes, because Toolbox writes a jetbrains-idea-*.desktop file for it. Use whichever start method suits you; both run the same binary under Toolbox/apps.
On first start IDEA asked about data sharing, and its dialog says the choice applies to all installed JetBrains products. It then opened the welcome screen with no license dialog. Once a project was open, the toolbar carried a green Trial badge, because the unified IDE starts a free 30-day Ultimate trial on its own.
After the trial ends, JetBrains says the IDE keeps its free core features rather than locking you out, as its unified IntelliJ IDEA notes explain. You do not need an account for any of this, and nothing asked for one during the install.
Set up a JDK from Fedora’s repos
IDEA runs on its own bundled JetBrains Runtime, but your projects need a JDK. Fedora 45’s repos carry exactly two: java-25-openjdk and java-latest-openjdk, which Fedora still labelled as an early-access build of OpenJDK 27 even though JDK 27 itself had reached general availability upstream. Fedora 44 offers the same pair, and neither release packages 21 or 17 anymore. The Java on Fedora guide installs Temurin 21 and 17 from Adoptium’s repository next to Fedora’s JDK 25, and IDEA lists any JDK under /usr/lib/jvm the same way.
sudo dnf install -y java-25-openjdk-devel
java -versionOn the test machine dnf pulled in five packages and java reported openjdk version "25.0.4.1". If a project is pinned to 21 or 17, you will need a JDK from somewhere other than Fedora’s repos, because dnf will not find one.
Run a first Java project
Open New Project from the welcome screen. IDEA picked up Fedora’s JDK without being told, listing Java 25.0.4 /usr/lib/jvm/java in the JDK field, which is the alternatives link Fedora maintains. So a later dnf upgrade of the JDK reaches your projects without any change in the IDE.
Give the project a name, keep “Add sample code” ticked and click Create. Follow these steps to run it:
- Close the AI promotion dialog if it appears.
- Open
src/Main.javafrom the project tree. - Press Shift+F10, or click the green arrow in the gutter.
Note that the sample uses Java 25’s compact source form, with a bare void main() and IO.println, so it needs JDK 25 or newer. The Run panel showed it launched with /usr/lib/jvm/java/bin/java and printed the greeting and five counter lines.
IDEA itself ran as a native Wayland client: its log at ~/.cache/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2026.2/log/idea.log recorded toolkit: sun.awt.wl.WLToolkit. So you don’t need to force XWayland for it on a GNOME session.
Install PyCharm from the tarball
Pick the tarball route to put one IDE under /opt for every user on the machine. PyCharm has also moved to one unified product, so the product code is PCP. Fetch the current link, the archive and its published checksum; these commands need jq as well:
PC_URL=$(curl -s "https://data.services.jetbrains.com/products/releases?code=PCP&latest=true&type=release" | jq -r '.PCP[0].downloads.linux.link')
curl -sSL -o /tmp/pycharm.tar.gz "$PC_URL"
curl -sSL -o /tmp/pycharm.tar.gz.sha256 "$PC_URL.sha256"Check the archive before you unpack it, because a truncated download can unpack into an IDE that fails in confusing ways later. The .sha256 file names the versioned download, so the awk step rewrites it to point at the local copy:
cd /tmp && sha256sum -c <(awk '{print $1" pycharm.tar.gz"}' pycharm.tar.gz.sha256)You want pycharm.tar.gz: OK back. Then unpack into /opt and link the launcher onto the default PATH:
sudo mkdir -p /opt/pycharm
sudo tar -xzf /tmp/pycharm.tar.gz -C /opt/pycharm --strip-components=1
sudo ln -sf /opt/pycharm/bin/pycharm /usr/local/bin/pycharmStart it with pycharm from a terminal in your session. It offered to import settings from the IDEA install, then opened its welcome screen with the GNOME keymap already selected. A jetbrains-pycharm-*.desktop launcher also appeared in ~/.local/share/applications, after PyCharm registered itself with the jetbrainsd helper Toolbox had installed. On a machine without Toolbox, JetBrains documents Tools | Create Desktop Entry for the same job; that path wasn’t tested here.
New Project found Fedora’s interpreter straight away, listing Python 3.15 (/usr/bin/python3.15) system and offering a project venv, uv or conda. Fedora 45 ships Python 3.15, so that’s what your venvs get unless you point PyCharm elsewhere.
Creating the project built a .venv in the project root, and running the welcome script with Shift+F10 used .venv/bin/python and printed “Hi, PyCharm”. The status bar showed .venv [3.15.0], which is the quick way to confirm which interpreter a project uses.
Tarball installs do not update through dnf. To move a root-owned /opt install to a new build, quit PyCharm, run sudo rm -rf /opt/pycharm and repeat the steps above with the new archive, because JetBrains warns against unpacking a new tarball over an old install. Your settings live in ~/.config/JetBrains, so they survive. The Python, Node.js, Go and Rust on Fedora guide covers the language toolchains these IDEs sit on top of.
Use the Flathub build with care
Flathub also carries com.jetbrains.IntelliJ-IDEA-Ultimate and com.jetbrains.PyCharm-Professional, with IntelliJ IDEA at the current 2026.2.3 build and PyCharm one point release behind, at 2026.2.2, when checked. Fedora Workstation’s Flathub remote is set up system-wide, so flatpak install --user failed with “No remote refs found”. A system-wide install works instead, and sudo is the simplest way to run it from a terminal:
sudo flatpak install -y flathub com.jetbrains.IntelliJ-IDEA-UltimateExpect a little over three minutes for it, since it pulls the 1.7 GB freedesktop SDK runtime along with the IDE. The sandbox gets your home directory, Wayland with an X11 fallback, the GPU, the network, the SSH and GPG agents and the secrets service, but no access to org.freedesktop.Flatpak, so the IDE can’t see or start host tools. Comparing the host with the sandbox shows the difference:
Inside the sandbox python3 was 3.14.7 from the SDK, not Fedora’s 3.15.0, /usr/lib/jvm did not exist, and flatpak-spawn --host was refused. A project that expects the Fedora JDK, the system Python or host tools like podman won’t find them from inside the IDE. Stick with Toolbox or the tarball unless isolation matters more to you than that. If you do want the Flatpak route, the Flathub on Fedora guide explains the filtered remote Fedora sets up.
Remove the IDEs and Toolbox
Close things in this order, because deleting files while an IDE was open did not work on the test machine: the IDE processes kept running from deleted paths and restarted the jetbrainsd helper after it had been killed. With every IDE closed, pkill jetbrainsd stopped it for good.
- Quit each IDE with File, Exit.
- Quit Toolbox from its menu.
- Stop the helper and remove the files with the commands below.
Run these as your normal user, since everything Toolbox installed lives in your home directory. Treat them as a full teardown: they also delete the settings, caches, plugins and launchers of every JetBrains IDE on the account, the tarball PyCharm included, so remove things one by one instead if you’re keeping an IDE:
pkill jetbrainsd
rm -rf ~/.local/opt/jetbrains-toolbox ~/.local/share/JetBrains ~/.cache/JetBrains ~/.config/JetBrains
rm -f ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/jetbrains-*.svg
rm -f ~/.config/autostart/jetbrains-toolbox.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/jetbrains-*.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/jetbrainsd.desktop
sed -i -e '/JetBrains\/Toolbox\/scripts/d' -e '/# Added by Toolbox App/d' ~/.bash_profile ~/.profileThose commands clear the IDEs Toolbox installed, their settings, the launchers, icons and the PATH lines; afterwards pgrep -a jetbrains printed nothing. Remove the tarball install and the Flatpak separately:
sudo rm -rf /opt/pycharm /usr/local/bin/pycharm
sudo flatpak uninstall -y com.jetbrains.IntelliJ-IDEA-Ultimate
sudo flatpak uninstall -y --unused
rm -rf ~/.var/app/com.jetbrains.IntelliJ-IDEA-UltimateRun the --unused pass because it removes runtimes the IDE pulled in that no other Flatpak still uses. Your projects in ~/IdeaProjects and ~/PycharmProjects stay untouched. More desktop setup ideas are in the things to do after installing Fedora 45 list, and VS Code on Fedora is the lighter editor if a full IDE is more than you need.
Keep this reference card
Here are the paths from the test machine, in one place for when something needs finding later. Logs are the first stop when an IDE won’t start, so the log paths are in the table too.
| Item | Toolbox install | Tarball install |
|---|---|---|
| IDE files | ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/ | /opt/pycharm |
Launcher on PATH | ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/scripts/idea | /usr/local/bin/pycharm |
| IDE log | ~/.cache/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2026.2/log/idea.log | ~/.cache/JetBrains/PyCharm2026.2/log/idea.log |
| Settings | ~/.config/JetBrains/ | ~/.config/JetBrains/ |
| Desktop entry | ~/.local/share/applications/jetbrains-idea-*.desktop | ~/.local/share/applications/jetbrains-pycharm-*.desktop |
| Fedora JDK it uses | /usr/lib/jvm/java from java-25-openjdk-devel | Same |
| Fedora Python it uses | /usr/bin/python3.15 | Same |
Remember that the Flathub build keeps its own copies of all of these under ~/.var/app/com.jetbrains.IntelliJ-IDEA-Ultimate, separate from the native installs, so settings changed in one do not carry over to the other.
