Switching to KDE (was kde or gnome)

[Kevin Kofler]

Eric <spamsink <at> scoot.netis.com> writes:
> installation.  So, you need to log on as root, open up a terminal 
> window, and say "yum groupinstall "KDE Softwarre Development"" ("yum 
> groupinstall KDE" may also work but I didn't try that).

It doesn't make sense to recommend installing "KDE Software Development" to the 
average user, it's only for developers. Average users should just install the 
regular KDE group (known as kde-desktop internally):
yum groupinstall kde-desktop

> switchdesk is a command-line utility where you log on as yourself, 
> open up a terminal window, and say "switchdesk KDE".  If you try that 
> and KDE isn't installed, it will tell you that you need to use "yum 
> groupinstall "KDE Software Development"" to install KDE.
> 
> If switchdesk isn't installed, you have to log on as root and say 
> "yum install switchdesk" first.

Note that switchdesk is reported not to work properly with the latest GDM.

> The other way is, when you click on your userID in the login screen 
> but before you type in the password, a small pulldown box will appear 
> at the bottom center of the screen, containing all of the desktops 
> you have installed.  Click on the arrow and select "KDE" from that 
> box, and from then on, until you change it, all of your logins will 
> be to KDE (again, as long as you have KDE installed).

There's a third option, which I recommend:
su -
echo 'DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE"' >/etc/sysconfig/desktop
echo 'DESKTOP="KDE"' >>/etc/sysconfig/desktop

In other words, create a file called /etc/sysconfig/desktop with the following 
contents:
DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE"
DESKTOP="KDE"

That option is permanent and systemwide and it sets not only the default 
desktop to KDE, but also the display manager to KDM instead of GDM. It's how 
the KDE live CD is set up.

        Kevin Kofler