KDE now available on EPEL 8 ... playground

[Troy Dawson]

# KDE now available on EPEL 8 playground

Many thanks to all those who have helped make this happen.

## Why playground only

KDE on EPEL 8 really needs to be in modules.[1]  So we don't have to
pull all the KDE packages out of normal EPEL8, we have chosen to only
have them in EPEL8 playground, until modules are available in EPEL8.

## How to install

### First: install epel-release
rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

### Second: Enable epel-release-playground
vi /etc/yum.repos.d/epel-playground.repo
( set enabled=1 for epel-playground )

### Third: Enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8 [2]
subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms

### Fourth: install KDE
dnf group install "KDE Plasma Workspaces"
(Optional) dnf group install kde-desktop
(Optional) dnf group install kde-apps
(Optional) dnf group install kde-media --skip-broken
(Optional) dnf group install kde-education
(Optional) dnf group install kde-software-development
(Optional) dnf group install kf5-software-development

### Fifth: Set sddm / KDE as desktop manager and desktop [3]
dnf install switchdesk system-switch-displaymanager
switchdesk kde
system-switch-displaymanager sddm
systemctl set-default graphical.target

## Non-Essential, but major Packages that didn't build
calligra (An integrated office suite)
-- too many dependencies to build at this time.
telepathy (and everything depending on it)
-- python2 based and required python2-dbus, which isn't in RHEL8

## Footnotes
[1] - Modules needed due to packages not in CRB, QT5 5.11, and a few
other smaller reasons.
[2] - There are several KDE critical packages in codeready-builder
[3] - Currently gdm does not like to start plasma, use sddm instead

[Orion Poplawski]

On 9/3/19 3:01 PM, Troy Dawson wrote:
> # KDE now available on EPEL 8 playground
>
> Many thanks to all those who have helped make this happen.

Thanks!
> [3] - Currently gdm does not like to start plasma, use sddm instead

Is there a bug for this I can follow?

[Troy Dawson]

On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 9:09 PM Orion Poplawski  wrote:
> On 9/3/19 3:01 PM, Troy Dawson wrote:
> > # KDE now available on EPEL 8 playground
> >
> > Many thanks to all those who have helped make this happen.
>
> Thanks!
> > [3] - Currently gdm does not like to start plasma, use sddm instead
>
> Is there a bug for this I can follow?

Never thought of opening one, but it's a good idea.
I won't be able to test this for another week.  Would you (or anyone
else) test to see if gdm works with plasma yet, and if not, file a
bugzilla.
For me, the problem was that plasma would show up in the list, but it
wouldn't do anything.  I'm assuming it was simply calling the wrong
thing to start it, or permissions.  I never investigated to much since
I wanted to include sddm anyway.

Troy

[Troy Dawson]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 6:12 AM Troy Dawson  wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 9:09 PM Orion Poplawski  wrote:
> > On 9/3/19 3:01 PM, Troy Dawson wrote:
> > > # KDE now available on EPEL 8 playground
> > >
> > > Many thanks to all those who have helped make this happen.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > > [3] - Currently gdm does not like to start plasma, use sddm instead
> >
> > Is there a bug for this I can follow?
>
> Never thought of opening one, but it's a good idea.
> I won't be able to test this for another week.  Would you (or anyone
> else) test to see if gdm works with plasma yet, and if not, file a
> bugzilla.
> For me, the problem was that plasma would show up in the list, but it
> wouldn't do anything.  I'm assuming it was simply calling the wrong
> thing to start it, or permissions.  I never investigated to much since
> I wanted to include sddm anyway.

Huh ... it's working now.
Though that was on a machine that already had sddm installed, and had
booted KDE previously.  I'll have to test on a fresh machine.

[Orion Poplawski]

On 9/20/19 7:41 AM, Troy Dawson wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 6:12 AM Troy Dawson  wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 9:09 PM Orion Poplawski  wrote:
> > > On 9/3/19 3:01 PM, Troy Dawson wrote:
> > > > # KDE now available on EPEL 8 playground
> > > >
> > > > Many thanks to all those who have helped make this happen.
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > > > [3] - Currently gdm does not like to start plasma, use sddm instead
> > >
> > > Is there a bug for this I can follow?
> >
> > Never thought of opening one, but it's a good idea.
> > I won't be able to test this for another week.  Would you (or anyone
> > else) test to see if gdm works with plasma yet, and if not, file a
> > bugzilla.
> > For me, the problem was that plasma would show up in the list, but it
> > wouldn't do anything.  I'm assuming it was simply calling the wrong
> > thing to start it, or permissions.  I never investigated to much since
> > I wanted to include sddm anyway.
>
> Huh ... it's working now.
> Though that was on a machine that already had sddm installed, and had
> booted KDE previously.  I'll have to test on a fresh machine.

Seems to work fine here as well.

[Troy Dawson]

With the release of CentOS 8, and some testing, I have a few changes
to the installation instructions.

On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 2:01 PM Troy Dawson  wrote:
> # KDE now available on EPEL 8 playground
>
> Many thanks to all those who have helped make this happen.
>
> ## Why playground only
>
> KDE on EPEL 8 really needs to be in modules.[1]  So we don't have to
> pull all the KDE packages out of normal EPEL8, we have chosen to only
> have them in EPEL8 playground, until modules are available in EPEL8.
>
> ## How to install
>
> ### First: install epel-release
> rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

### Second: Enable epel-playground
dnf config-manager --enable epel-playground
> ### Third: Enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8 [2]

# If RHEL 8 do
  subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms
# If CentOS 8 do
  dnf config-manager --enable PowerTools
> ### Fourth: install KDE
> dnf group install "KDE Plasma Workspaces"
> (Optional) dnf group install kde-desktop
> (Optional) dnf group install kde-apps
> (Optional) dnf group install kde-media --skip-broken
> (Optional) dnf group install kde-education
> (Optional) dnf group install kde-software-development
> (Optional) dnf group install kf5-software-development

### Fifth: Set sddm / KDE as desktop manager and desktop (Optional) [4]
dnf install switchdesk system-switch-displaymanager
switchdesk kde
system-switch-displaymanager sddm
systemctl set-default graphical.target (Not-Optional)
> ## Non-Essential, but major Packages that didn't build
> calligra (An integrated office suite)
> -- too many dependencies to build at this time.
> telepathy (and everything depending on it)
> -- python2 based and required python2-dbus, which isn't in RHEL8
>
> ## Footnotes
> [1] - Modules needed due to packages not in CRB, QT5 5.11, and a few
> other smaller reasons.
> [2] - There are several KDE critical packages in codeready-builder
> [3] - Currently gdm does not like to start plasma, use sddm instead

[4] - Disregard [3].  gdm works find with KDE/plasma

Troy