I want a minimal KDE install with just the base desktop environment (no preinstalled apps) with working Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, firewall, and drivers out of the box. How do I do that with the Fedora Everything installer? Keep in mind I’m a beginner and I don’t want to do all this within the terminal, I want to know which boxes I should select with the graphical installer and install the software I want after installation.
Basically, a working OS out of the box where the only thing I have to worry about is the software I need to install.
I always use a netinstall ISO.
In the Anaconda installer, I select the “Fedora base install” option, which installs the bare minimum—around 500 MB, I believe.
Once the installation is complete, I switch to console mode (e.g., Alt+F2).
Then, I run chroot /mnt/sysimage to enter the installation’s directory structure and install the applications I need; actually, I use a script to finalize the installation for me.
Upon rebooting, I have a system installed with exactly what I need.
I use Kde too. I found this console-based installation method because the installer uses groups—and in the case of KDE, it uses the “kde desktop .. or workspaces” group, which includes applications you might not necessarily want.
Graphical tools rarely provide the level of control you get using command-line tools. Because Linux support is provided by the user community, web-discoverable text reaches a broader user base and is much more efficient at conveying details. Microsoft and Apple support only a fraction of the systems that can run linux, so don’t have to deal the diversity of hardware that is used to run Linux. Outside of cubicle farms where hardware and software are controlled and users can refer problems to their IT staff, Linux users who can use basic command-line tools get the benefits of more precise control and more effective problem resolution.
If you stick with the graphical installer you end up with packages you may never need, but a configuration that many others use, so better tested and less likely to have issues.
The minimal installation is “Custom” or “Server,” but the graphical server is not installed.
For graphic use , you have a choice depending on the desktop environment you want.
For KDE, it is KDE Plasma Workspaces.
However, as noted, this will be a general installation that might include software you don’t need.
And I believe the install result is almost similar to the KDE LiveCD.
What is your definiton of “minimal” and what constitutes a “preinstalled app” for you? Would you like a file manager (Dolphin)? A text editor (KWrite)? A way to graphically install more applications (Discover)? A viewer for images (Gwenview) or PDFs (Okular)? Or a simple calculator (KCalc)? A terminal emulator (Konsole)?
In this response in one of your other threads, I describe how you can choose a custom operating system and then select “KDE” on the right, to get just a very bare-bones KDE Plasma installation. But it will include the things I listed above. I am afraid that Fedora is not built to provide the level of customization you are looking for in its graphical installer. You may have to look into a text-only installation and then using dnf to install individual packages. Or you might want to look at other distros, I know that the OpenSUSE installer provides an option to customize the package selection on the individual package level. But I never enjoyed the process due to the many dependencies between packages.
Out of curiosity, was there anything wrong with the other thread(s) that required a new thread on this topic?
There was nothing wrong with the other threads, I just wanted a really easy way to get a minimal install.
“Minimal” to me is simply just an OS with only the important parts that an OS needs that you listed (Dolphin, Konsole, etc)
Sorry for feeling like I’ve been spamming this forum with the same question. I’m currently on Linux Mint Xfce running on a pretty under-powered Lenovo IdeaPad and I plan to upgrade to a Lenovo ThinkPad, which I’m going to install Fedora KDE on.
What I am trying to point out is that “minimal” is very much subjective. Your minimal is another person’s bloat and another person’s unusable/broken. I suggest you take a look at the kde-desktop group (also suggested by @eddy02 above), which is what you get with a custom OS and “KDE” selected in the Everything installer. See if that fits your needs. Otherwise, as mentioned before, you will probably have to take another route.
Actually, I just checked my playbooks and the group definition again, I was wrong here: kde-desktop does not include Gwenview, Okular, or KCalc. At least Gwenview and Okular are essential for me, but other image and PDF viewers exist, so this may well be what you want.
I think you might get better information if you stick to just one or two threads and have a discussion there until you have the answers you need. When you instead split it across multiple threads, you may end up engaging with different people, who give different advice because they aren’t aware of the advice you have received in the other threads. And then you might end up creating yet another thread just to consolidate the different advice you were given. That is not very efficient.
I saw the threads and thought “didn’t I see a similar thread from this person already?”. And frankly, when that happens too much, at some point I stop looking at a person’s threads.
Do not attempt to build a minimal system unless you know exactly what you are doing and what you need. This would probably lead to a status-quo where some important parts of the operating system will be missing (like a Bluetooth support for instance) which might make you very unhappy, especially when you claim to be a “beginner”.
Use the following:
Download the Fedora KDE iso, or Fedora Everything iso. They both have graphical installers. The Everything iso uses an older one, but that’s still good.
With EVERYTHING, do not select MINIMAL or SERVER, but use KDE Plasma Workstation. With the KDE iso, you will be all set.
Install the complete KDE based system.
Take a look around, see how it works, get oriented.
Then start cutting off the fat, remove applications you do not want, remove services you do not want, etc.
With this approach you will end up with a correctly installed KDE based Fedora tailored to your specific needs.
It’s just one method among others…
I spend less time doing a minimal install followed by dnf install $(cat "my applist") than I do searching for and removing all the applications I don’t need.
This is not about applications only. A complex DE installation will bring various useful packages and configuration for all kinds of stuff that are easy to miss when just a minimal installation is performed.
But yeah, anybody can treat their system the way they need.
I don’t get it.
I install a distro primarily to run the applications i need; I try to avoid unnecessary complexities even though I’m on Rawhide and used to dealing with headaches…
What bothers me is that the default Plasma 6 installations pull in a bunch of KF5 and Qt5 dependencies that I don’t need.
The worst part is that before the switch to Plasma 6, I had learned the basics of Qt to port my Qt5 applications to Qt6 ,hoping for a smooth experience, since I like having a clean install.
Yet, despite that, after every installation ,whether it’s a live image or a netinstall, I’m forced to run dnf remove kf5*.
In the past, when I tried to build the most minimalistic Fedora based off the minimal installation with Fluxbox, I arrived into problems with WIFI and Bluetooth, for instance, because the services were not installed just by adding the x-server and the DE packages. In order to be able to use the system, I was forced to look into documentation and forums to know what to install and how to set it up. I assume this would happen if you went with minimal installation plus the Lxqt packages, too. He said he was “a beginner” so I thought he might want to spare this extra work.
I still think doing dnf remove kf5* is much simpler option than trying to nail everything down with adding “some” packages, you do not know about as a beginner.
As I said, everybody is welcome to operate their system the way it works for them. If you have a better workflow, use it.
I understand your approach, as you say it is ideal for a beginner.
The advantage of Plasma, which I have always used, even though I sometimes criticize it ,is that it is modular.
Regarding the Wi-Fi issues you mentioned with Fluxbox, I know that if I encountered such a problem after a minimal installation, I could simply run dnf install plasma-nm to resolve it.
You might say, “But you have to know that,” yet having choices is precisely why I switched to Linux.
Thank you for this discussion; I find it very informative.
Further to the comments of @lruzicka above, when I tried to build up from a minimal Fedora installation by installing the groups and packages I wanted, I found that Plymouth was not configured correctly. I knew how to fix this, but it gave me pause as to what else might not be configured correctly that I would not find out about until a problem later.
