If you downloaded and installed Fedora 13, most likely you are using the GNOME desktop. If you’ve been reading me here on Ghacks long enough then you know I am fairly partial to the GNOME desktop. That doesn’t mean I feel KDE should get the cold shoulder. In fact, the latest iterations of KDE have made AMAZING strides in reaching (and nearly surpassing) GNOME in stability and speed. Because of this I have started a new “push” to cover the KDE desktop.
But in order for you to use KDE you will in, in many cases, have to install it post-distribution install. Of course, if you’re not interested in installing KDE after you have installed the OS, you can always download the Fedora KDE spin. This will install, by default, the KDE desktop. If, however, you want the best of both worlds, you will need to install the KDE desktop manually…that’s where this article comes in play. In this article I will show you how to install the KDE desktop on Fedora 13 using both the command line and the Add/Remove Software tool.
Pre-installation
Before you run through the steps of install KDE manually, it would be a good idea to make sure your system is fully up to date. To do this click on System > Administration > Software Update. If the updater finds anything to update, go ahead and let that happen. Once the system is updated you are ready to go. NOTE: If your kernel is updated you might be required to do a system restart. Go ahead with that restart BEFORE you install KDE. NOTE 2: All of the below will need to have super user privileges. For the command you will need to first su to the root user.
Installing KDE using command line
Let’s start with the command line version first. You might think this is as simple as issuing the command yum install kde. It’s not. But it’s not as challenging as trying to figure out every software package to install and then list them all out via command line. For that yum has the groupinstall option, which will install an entire group of packages. If you are curious to see what groups are installed and available you can issue the command:
yum grouplist
This will first list all of the groups you have installed followed by a listing of all the groups available. In the list of groups available you will see “KDE Software Compilation” which is what you want to install. To do this issue the command:
yum groupinstall "KDE Software Comilation"
and hit Enter. This will download and install the entire KDE desktop for you.
Installing KDE using the GUI
Figure 1
This is equally as easy as the command line. To install KDE using the GUI click System > Administration > Add/Remove Software. In this GUI tool you will want to click Package Collections from the left pane (see Figure 1).
When you are in the Package Collections scroll down until you see KDE Software Compilation. Mark KDE Software Compilation for installation then click Apply to install. That’s it.
Final thoughts
KDE has come a long way and is certainly worth giving a go. If you use Fedora you are only moments away from the KDE desktop.
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Hi Jack, thanks for the detailed guide. Could you give the steps to use the KDE environ after installing it. I mean, will it become the default desktop environment or what? If so how do I use Gnome when I want to? Thanks in advance for your help.
The wiki page on kde has all the information you need to switch to the KDE:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KDE
Thank you very much for this detailed guide, it will come in handy in a few days when KDE 4.5 comes out. Lately I’ve been checking out KDE a bit and started to get very interested in it. by now I even think I will like it more than GNOME. so that’s why I plan to switch to using KDE when KDE 4.5 comes out.
If you don’t get the group you can install it with the command ‘yum install kde*’ to install everything related to kde or ‘yum install kdebase’ followed by kdeart*/ kdeedu*/ kdegame* as needed. Yum will handle the related. dependencies.
Just one correction: it’s “KDE Software Compilation” and not “KDE Software Comilation”
I’ve used the fedora boot project to install a few test vm’s and really like it but it defaults to gnome and it takes forever to unselect all of the gnome stuff and switch to kde. Is there a simple way to set up a true kde fedora desktop like the live kde version using basically the full dvd or boot media?