Centos6/RHEL install Gnome Desktop

While the Fluxbox. Thunar and Rxvt Desktop is fine for most users purposes, being pretty much the fastest performing of all the various Desktop environments, some users may prefer to use a different one for a variety of reasons, ie accessibility, and may want to use the Gnome Desktop, which is also a popular addition in Centos 6.

64-bit users should be aware that the desktop environment will result in your system using a mixture of 32-bit and 64-bit software. This may change over time, but at the time of writing this book, most desktop applications are still 32-bit.

To install the GNOME desktop environment, log in as root and type the following command to install the necessary packages and dependencies

# yum groupinstall "Desktop" "X Window System" "Fonts" "Desktop Platform"

This will install around 530 MB of packages, but for you to begin
using the desktop environment at boot, you will need to change the runlevel.

A runlevel is a preset operating state that determines which programs are executed at system start-up. In this case, we are intending to execute the desktop environment so to do this, open up innitab

# vi /etc/inittab

Now scroll down towards the bottom of this file and locate the following

id:3:initdefault

Change this line to read

id:5:initdefault

Save and close the file

You will need to add some software in order to enhance your enjoyment of the desktop environment, so issue the command

# yum groupinstall "General Purpose Desktop" "Graphical
Administration Tools"

Finally, you will need to reboot your computer in order to allow the changes to take
immediate effect

# reboot