Install KDE Desktop on CentOS 9 / AlmaLinux 9 / RHEL 9

A desktop environment is software that offers a graphical user interface and several native desktop applications. The desktop environments enable applications running on that environment to perform advanced operations such as drag and drop tasks. There are different desktop environments that are available for Linux distributions. The supported desktop environments for RHEL 9, AlmaLinux 9, and CentOS 9 include; GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXQt, MATE, and Cinnamon desktop environments.

• GNOME is the default desktop environment for RHEL-based systems based on GTK+ 2 graphical toolkit.
• KDE is the alternative desktop environment based on Qt 3 graphical toolkit.
• Xfce is a fork of GNOME that can be used instead of GNOME due to it being lightweight and customizable.

KDE Desktop Environment

KDE is the most customizable graphical desktop environment with productive applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, and web browsers. It is also referred to as Plasma or KDE Plasma. It has a modern look while interacting with applications and to add to that, it is an incredibly lightweight desktop environment and flexible. Its customizable settings allow you to change the main theme of the applications, color schemes, and fonts. You can also add widgets and extensions to the Desktop. Sone native applications that come with the KDE desktop environment include;

• Okular — Document Viewer.
• Dolphin — File Manager.
• Konsole — Terminal.
• Ark — Archiving tool.
• KWrite — Text editor.

Features of KDE Desktop Environment

• Extremely lightweight.
• Highly customizable desktop environment.
• Built-in tools and native applications.
• Plasma Launcher that lets you quickly launch applications.
• KRunner is a built-in launcher that lets you launch a program from the mini command line.
• KDE Connect allows you to connect to an Android phone and access your computer remotely.

This guide takes you through the steps of installing the KDE desktop environment on CentOS 9|AlmaLinux 9|RHEL 9.

Install KDE Plasma on CentOS 9|AlmaLinux 9|RHEL 9

Install the EPEL repository using the following command. This enables installing external packages on your system.

sudo dnf -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

Update your system packages with the following command.

sudo dnf update -y

Enable code-ready builder on AlmaLinux|CentOS|RHEL respectively with the following commands.

## CentOS  Stream 9 & AlmaLinux 9 ##
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb

## RHEL 9 ##
subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-9-$(arch)-rpms

Install KDE Plasma Desktop Environment with the following command.

sudo dnf -y groupinstall "KDE Plasma Workspaces" "base-x"

Then reboot your system.

reboot