Minimal packages to run KDE

From WBITT's Cooker!

The package list here, was tested on CENTOS 5.5 x86_64 installed with @core. There are two methods to do this.

• YUM method, if you already have a working yum repository available.
• RPM method, if you do not have a yum repository.

YUM method

You can use the command yum groupinstall 'KDE (K Desktop Environment)' to install KDE. But this method will install a lot of unnecessary RPMs. It is better to install only the key packages, as shown below. Their dependencies will automatically be pulled by yum.

There is already a yum repository configured in default system installation, by the name 'c5-media', which checks for media in any of the following: /media, /media/cdrom or /media/CentOS . Just mount your CentOS CD/DVD on /media/cdrom.

# mkdir /media/cdrom
# mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom/

The following will install about 113 MB of packages, and will give you a fully functional KDE core desktop:

#  yum --disablerepo=\* --enablerepo=c5-media install kdebase.x86_64 system-config-display switchdesk

Notice the use of trailing .x86_64 with kdebase, above . If you will not use it, a lot of un-necessary i386 packages will also get installed.

System stats (before and after)

Our system:

[root@testkde ~]# uname -a
Linux testkde 2.6.18-194.el5 #1 SMP Fri Apr 3 14:58:14 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Before: (only @core / no KDE)

[root@testkde ~]# rpm -qa | wc -l
233

[root@testkde ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda3             2.8G  707M  2.0G  27% /
/dev/vda1              99M   12M   82M  13% /boot
tmpfs                 250M     0  250M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdc              4.1G  4.1G     0 100% /media/cdrom
[root@testkde ~]# 

After: (@core and 'basic' KDE components)

[root@bilaltest ~]# rpm -qa | wc -l
328

[root@bilaltest ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda3             2.8G  1.1G  1.6G  43% /
/dev/vda1              99M   12M   82M  13% /boot
tmpfs                 250M     0  250M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdc              4.1G  4.1G     0 100% /media/cdrom
[root@bilaltest ~]# 

Note: KDM (K Display Manager) will not let you login as root. Normal user can login to KDE GUI. You can switch to root once logged in as an ordinary normal user.

Screenshot