Install

What you need

Fedora Workstation, 42 or newer. Other Fedora editions work if they have a login screen (GDM, SDDM); a minimal install can start Hyprland from a console.
An internet connection, and an account that can use sudo.

The one-liner

curl -fsSL https://vela.ijasmin.it/install.sh | bash

That is the repo’s own install.sh, which this site serves as it is; the same file is at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/i-jasmin/vela-dots/main/install.sh.

It asks for your password once, then:

Checks that it is on Fedora and not running as root.
Clones vela to ~/.local/share/vela-dots (or updates it, if it is already there).
Installs the packages – Hyprland, Quickshell, matugen and the rest – after enabling the COPR repositories they come from. If one that the desktop cannot run without fails to install, it stops here and says which. Fedora’s own matugen is older than vela needs, so vela installs its own build in its place, and it turns Bluetooth on if it is off.
Links the configs into place. Anything already at one of vela’s paths is moved aside first, never deleted (see below).
Sets a first wallpaper, so the colour palette exists before you log in. Three come with vela; they are copied to ~/Pictures/Wallpapers only if that folder has no images of its own.
Runs vela doctor, which lists anything missing.

Everything it did, and anything that went wrong – its own warnings and dnf’s, red lines included – is kept in ~/.local/state/vela/install.log, for after the terminal has scrolled away.

Then log out and choose Hyprland on the login screen – on GDM, the gear button in the corner once you have picked your name.

Your old configs are safe

vela owns these paths in your home folder:

Path	What it is
`~/.config/hypr`	Hyprland, hypridle, hyprlock
`~/.config/quickshell/vela`	the shell itself
`~/.config/vela`	vela’s settings and colour templates
`~/.config/kitty`, `~/.config/fish`, `~/.config/fuzzel`	terminal, shell (kitty opens fish), fallback launcher
`~/.config/starship.toml`	the prompt
`~/.local/bin/vela`	the `vela` command
`~/.bashrc.d/vela.sh`	the terminal greeting, for bash

If any of them already exists, it is moved – whole – to ~/.local/state/vela/backup-<date>/ before vela’s is linked in. To go back to yours, see Update and uninstall.

Options

Set these in front of bash in the one-liner:

Variable	Does
`VELA_DIR=~/src/vela-dots`	clone somewhere else (your configs link into it, so it has to stay put)
`VELA_BRANCH=main`	install a different branch
`VELA_REPO=<url>`	install from a fork
`VELA_SKIP_PACKAGES=1`	only link; install nothing

curl -fsSL https://vela.ijasmin.it/install.sh | VELA_DIR=~/src/vela-dots bash

matugen

vela needs matugen 4 or newer, and Fedora’s own is older (3.1 on Fedora 44). So vela builds matugen itself, from packaging/fedora/matugen.spec, for each Fedora release it supports, and the installer puts that in place of Fedora’s – only when Fedora’s is older, so a newer one from Fedora is left alone. Running the installer again updates it when vela moves to a newer matugen.

The packages are on the repo’s packages release; dnf says it skipped their signature check, since they are not signed. On a Fedora release vela has no build for yet, the installer says so and keeps Fedora’s: palettes still work, from the wallpaper’s dominant colour, and vela doctor says so. To install vela’s build on its own:

~/.local/share/vela-dots/bootstrap.sh --matugen

NVIDIA

If your machine has an NVIDIA card and no NVIDIA driver, the installer says so at the end. The driver comes from RPM Fusion; see NVIDIA.

By hand

The installer is a thin wrapper; everything it does is in the repo:

git clone https://github.com/i-jasmin/vela-dots ~/.local/share/vela-dots
cd ~/.local/share/vela-dots
./bootstrap.sh                       # packages, then links
vela wallpaper ~/Pictures/Wallpapers/some-image.jpg

./bootstrap.sh --packages and ./bootstrap.sh --link do one half each; ./bootstrap.sh --matugen installs vela’s matugen if yours is older; ./bootstrap.sh --targets lists the paths above.