Feodra – Setup Desktop Environment

ByDavid Kittell
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In a recent turn of events I’ve been asked to setup a proof of concept (POC) UNIX desktop environment for a work location.

Below I will work through some of the process.

First I chose to start with Fedora KDE Spin available at https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/ as the users will be coming from a Windows world KDE is a fair match.

NOTE: In most cases the dnf commands below can be replaced with yum if you want to try to use similar setup on Red Hat or CentOS

Setup Fedora using the DVD image

For support purposes enable SSH

Bash
sudo systemctl start sshd.service
sudo systemctl enable sshd.service

OPTIONAL But suggested: Modify SELinux

Bash
clear
sudo cp /etc/selinux/config /etc/selinux/config.bk
sudo sed -i '/^#/d' /etc/selinux/config
sudo sed -i '/^$/d' /etc/selinux/config
SELinuxStatus=$(cat /etc/selinux/config | grep SELINUX=|cut -d'=' -f2)
echo Current Status: $SELinuxStatus
sudo sed -i "s|SELINUX=$SELinuxStatus|SELINUX=permissive|" /etc/selinux/config
SELinuxStatus=$(cat /etc/selinux/config | grep SELINUX=|cut -d'=' -f2)
echo New Status: $SELinuxStatus
sudo reboot

Set the hostname

Bash
sudo -s
echo -e "\033[01m\e[4mType your desired hostname for the server, followed by [ENTER]:\e[0m\033[0m"
read hostname
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname --static "$hostname"
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname "$hostname"
hostnamectl status
#sudo restorecon -v /etc/hostname

Run Update

Bash
sudo dnf update -y
# OR
# sudo yum update -y

Note: If you get an error like “Error: Failed to synchronize cache for repo ‘updates'” you may need to disable SSL validation in your yum repositories.
Some companies like to decrypt SSL traffic to analyze it and then repackage the SSL certificate, in these cases some repositories may have problems.

Bash
# Remove SSL Verify
# Archive the original config
sudo cp /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo.orig
sudo cp /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo.orig
sudo cp /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates-testing.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates-testing.repo.orig
# Add sslverify=false
sudo sed -i 's|failovermethod=priority|failovermethod=priority\nsslverify=false|' /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo
sudo sed -i 's|failovermethod=priority|failovermethod=priority\nsslverify=false|' /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
sudo sed -i 's|failovermethod=priority|failovermethod=priority\nsslverify=false|' /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates-testing.repo

Install additional tools

Bash
echo -e "\033[32mInstalling Needed Applications\033[0m"
sudo dnf -y install net-tools bind-utils nano wget tcl unzip bzip2 ed gcc make libstdc++.so.6 telnet
sudo dnf -y install --best dbus-python nss-mdns.i686 nss-mdns.x86_64 pygtk2

Set Timezone

Bash
# Set Timezone
sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/Detroit

Note: If you’re not sure what timezone to set you can look them up with this

Bash
ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/
ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/

Remove Preloaded Applications That Are Not Needed

Bash
# Remove Preloaded Applications That Are Not Needed
# rpm -qa | grep '^qt5'
sudo dnf remove -y qt5-qdbusviewer-5.7.1-5.fc26.x86_64 kmahjongg-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 kpat-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 kmines-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 ktorrent-5.0.1-3.fc26.x86_64 ktorrent-libs-5.0.1-3.fc26.x86_64 akregator-17.04.1-1.fc26.x86_64 akregator-libs-17.04.1-1.fc26.x86_64 konversation-1.7.2-3.fc26.x86_64 knode-4.14.10-31.fc26.x86_64 knode-libs-4.14.10-31.fc26.x86_64 firefox-56.0-5.fc26.x86_64 konqueror-libs-17.04.1-1.fc26.x86_64 konqueror-17.04.1-1.fc26.x86_64 qupzilla-2.1.2-4.fc26.x86_64 kf5-ktnef-17.04.1-1.fc26.x86_64 kf5-ktnef-17.04.1-1.fc26.x86_64 kget-libs-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 kget-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 kolourpaint-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 kolourpaint-libs-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64 kruler-16.12.3-1.fc26.x86_64

Install Java

Bash
# Install Java Plugins
# icedtea-web java-openjdk
sudo dnf install -y icedtea-web java-openjdk

Install Adobe Reader

Bash
# Install Adobe Reader
sudo dnf install -y ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/9.x/9.5.5/enu/AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i486linux_enu.rpm

Install Google Chrome

Bash
# Install Google Chrome
sudo dnf install -y https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm
# OR
cd ~/
wget --no-check-certificate https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install -y google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm

Install Visual Studio Code (VSCode)

First Setup The Repo

Bash
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
sudo sh -c 'echo -e "[code]\nname=Visual Studio Code\nbaseurl=https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/vscode\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc" > /etc/yum.repos.d/vscode.repo'

Install VSCode

Bash
dnf check-update
sudo dnf install code
Originally Posted on October 30, 2017
Last Updated on December 10, 2025
All information on this site is shared with the intention to help. Before any source code or program is ran on a production (non-development) system it is suggested you test it and fully understand what it is doing not just what it appears it is doing. I accept no responsibility for any damage you may do with this code.