How to Install KDE Desktop Environment in CentOS/RHEL 6

This post describes how to install the KDE Desktop environment in a CentOS/RHEL 6.x system where it is not yet installed.

1. On CentOS/RHEL 6.x, KDE yum group is known as “KDE desktop”. Thus, to install Gnome Desktop Environment on CentOS/RHE 6.x, we need to perform a yum groupinstall as below:

# yum groupinstall "KDE desktop" "X Window System" "Fonts"

2. If the packages need to be re-installed, do reinstall command like:

# yum reinstall"@KDE desktop" "@X Window System" "@Fonts"

3. In case X session can not be started up with “startx”, generate a configuration file /root/xorg.conf.new by the command:

# Xorg -configure

And copy it onto /etc/X11/:

# cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

4. To make default Boot to GUI, edit /etc/inittab and change to below:

id:5:initdefault:

This will boot the server in “runlevel 5”