Fedora 24 was released on June 21, 2016 with three editions: Cloud, Server and Workstation. The article describes Fedora 24 Workstation, its new features and its basic installation with a custom partition table. The installation is set up as a dual (or triple) boot alongside with Windows on a personal workstation or laptop with EFI-boot restrictions.

Fedora 24: What is new?

Fedora 24 is not an revolutionary release but comes with a lot of improvements (gcc 6, glibc 2.23, etc) and bug fixes from previous releases. The release is therefore proven stable. As usual it is shipped as standard with the gnome 3.20 desktop interface. Most users have got used to it by now and one has to admit that the desktop improved a lot in stability and comfort.

Prepare USB-stick to test and install

To install Fedora 24 it is recommended to first test it with a USB-stick on your device. To do this do the following:

1. Download Fedora 24
   
   Go to https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/. Then download the iso and the checksum file that is suitable for your machine. In my case:

   
Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-24-1.2.iso

Fedora-Workstation-24-x86_64-CHECKSUM


2. Check the installation files
   
   Import the Fedora gpg keys and verify if the file is valid:

   
curl https://getfedora.org/static/fedora.gpg | gpg –import

sha256sum -c Fedora-Workstation-24-x86_64-CHECKSUM


   The result should be:

   
Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso: OK


3. Burn the USB-stick
   
   Insert the USB-stick and check with “mount” exactly where it is mounted (on my device /dev/sdc). Then burn the bootable USB-stick under fedora with:

   
sudo dd if=/home/christian/Downloads/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=8M


   Beware: Be absolutely sure that you know exactly the name of the USB-device. Do specify the device /dev/sdc and not the partition /dev/sdc1

4. Check the USB-stick
   
   Insert the USB-stick and reboot your PC or labtop. Then issue ESC and then F9; then choose the USB-device as boot device. When you see the linux boot device manager you should choose: check the media and boot. If this works ok you are ready!

Installation as Dual Boot and Custom Partitioning

Before installing your machine as dual boot, make sure that you have some free space (ca. 800 Mbyte) available on your disk. If not, then boot with Windows and shrink the existing Windows partitions to free up space on the disk.

Moreover check the EFI-parameters (if there are any) in the bios of your machine. For most HP-devices this can be set in the bios with the following parameters:


Legacy support: disabled

Secure boot: enabled


Now boot Fedora 24 from the USB-stick and press “install on harddrive”. In the installation procedure you have to set:

1. the installation language (recommended: English),
2. the keyboard settings,
3. the location and time zone,
4. the hostname,

Then, in order to install a dual boot, you proceed to choose “Installation Destination” and your harddisk. Here choose the option “Partitioning: I will configure the partitioning”. Now set a manual partition table using the following recommended partitions, file-system-types and sizes. /dev/sdaxx has to be replaced by the appropriate name of your harddisk:


/dev/sda11 Fedora24: /boot, ext4, 500 MB

/dev/sda12 Fedora24: EFI Boot, fat32, 200 MB

/dev/sda13 Fedora24: /, ext4, 30 GB

/dev/sda14 Fedora24: /home, ext4, encrypt, 60 GB

/dev/sda15 Fedora24: swap, size is your equivalent to your hardware RAM


Remark: You can encrypt your partitions protecting your data. In this case it is sufficient to encrypt the "/home"-partition. The other partitions do not contain data and therefore can be left as is. This simplifies and speeds up the boot process.

Now start the installation. Then reboot. Then choose Fedora 24 from the bootloader and here you go.