Third-Party Repositories
Almost everything on this site comes from a repository Fedora does not run. Set those up once; the other pages assume you have been here first.
| Repository | What it holds | Who runs it | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| RPM Fusion | The patent-encumbered and non-free packages Fedora excludes: the full FFmpeg, the restricted GStreamer plugins, the NVIDIA driver, Steam | A volunteer group, most of them Fedora packagers | RPM Fusion |
| negativo17 | The same NVIDIA driver as RPM Fusion, packaged differently, plus CUDA and other hardware-adjacent software | Simone Caronni, a Fedora packager, on his own infrastructure | negativo17 |
| Terra | Around three thousand packages Fedora does not carry, rolling rather than frozen: newer desktop software, shell tooling, Wayland compositors | Fyra Labs, the team behind Ultramarine Linux | Terra |
| Flathub | Sandboxed desktop applications, including most of the proprietary ones: Steam, Discord, Spotify, Chrome | A grassroots community; each application comes from its own publisher | Flathub |
| COPR | Whatever an individual chose to build. One project per owner, no common policy | The builder of each project. Fedora runs the service, not the content | COPR |
Most people need RPM Fusion and nothing else. negativo17 is an alternative for the NVIDIA driver, and the two cannot be mixed for it. Terra adds software neither of them carries, and its graphics and multimedia channels are optional for the same reason. Flathub is a different kind of source — sandboxed applications rather than system packages — and Fedora already ships a filtered version of it. COPR is where you go for a package that exists in none of them.
What you are agreeing to
A third-party repository is outside Fedora's trust boundary. It has its own
maintainers, its own build system, and its own signing keys, and dnf runs its
package scriptlets as root exactly like a Fedora package. Enabling one is a
decision about who you trust to run code on your machine.
Two further consequences are worth knowing before you start:
- Fedora does not support systems with these repos enabled. Bug reports against Fedora packages that have been replaced by third-party versions will be closed.
- Release upgrades get harder. Release packages are versioned per Fedora release, and any swapped package has to resolve against the new one. An upgrade that would have been clean can stall on a third-party package that has not been rebuilt yet.
RPM Fusion and negativo17 are both widely used and well maintained. That is a judgement about their track record and does not change the trust model.
Do not mix them for the same software
RPM Fusion and negativo17 package the same NVIDIA driver under different names with overlapping file ownership, and dnf will install pieces of both without complaint. Pick one route and stay on it — NVIDIA Drivers compares them and has the procedure for switching if you already have the wrong one installed.
Having both repositories enabled is fine in itself, as long as any given piece of software comes from only one of them.