Install testing kernels in Fedora

Table of Contents

If you’re on the latest Fedora release, you’re already running lots of modern packages. However, there are those times when you may want to help with testing efforts or try out a new feature in a newer package.

Most of my systems have the updates-testing repository enabled in one way or another. This repository contains packages that package maintainers have submitted to become the next stable package in Fedora. For example, if there is a bug fix for nginx, the package maintainer submits the changes and publish a release. That release goes into the testing repositories and must sit for a waiting period or receive sufficient karma (“works for me” responses) to move into stable repositories.

Getting started #

One of the easiest ways to get started is to allow a small amount of packages to be installed from the testing repository on a regular basis. Fully enabling the testing repository for all packages can lead to trouble on occasion, especially if a package maintainer discovers a problem and submits a new testing package.

To get started, open /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates-testing.repo in your favorite text editor (using sudo). This file tells yum and dnf where it should look for packages. The stock testing repository configuration looks like this:

[updates-testing]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - Test Updates
failovermethod=priority
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/updates/testing/$releasever/$basearch/
metalink=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=updates-testing-f$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=0
repo_gpgcheck=0
type=rpm
gpgcheck=1
metadata_expire=6h
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$releasever-$basearch
skip_if_unavailable=False

By default, the repository is not enabled (enabled=0).

In this example, let’s consider a situation where you want to test the latest kernel packages as soon as they reach the testing repository. We need to make two edits to the repository configuration:

enabled=1 - Allow yum/dnf to use the repository
includepkgs=kernel* - Only allow packages matching kernel* to be installed from the testing repository

The repository configuration should now look like this:

[updates-testing]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - Test Updates
failovermethod=priority
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/updates/testing/$releasever/$basearch/
metalink=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=updates-testing-f$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=1
repo_gpgcheck=0
type=rpm
gpgcheck=1
metadata_expire=6h
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$releasever-$basearch
skip_if_unavailable=False
includepkgs=kernel*

Getting testing packages #

Running dnf upgrade kernel* should now pull a kernel from the updates-testing repository. You can verify this by checking the Repository column in the dnf output.

If you feel more adventurous later, you can add additional packages (separated by spaces) to the includepkgs line. The truly adventurous users can leave the repo enabled but remove includepkgs altogether. This will pull all available packages from the testing repository as soon as they are available.

Package maintainers need feedback! #

One final note: package maintainers need your feedback on packages. Positive or negative feedback is very helpful. You can search for the package on Bodhi and submit feedback there, or use the fedora-easy-karma script via the fedora-easy-karma package. The script will look through your installed package list and query you for feedback on each one.

Submitting lots of feedback can earn you some awesome Fedora Badges!

Photo credit: US Air Force