SIGs/KDE/EPEL

KDE on EPEL

KDE was part of RHEL up until RHEL 8. At that point the majority of KDE was removed, with only some qt5 packages left. This allowed the EPEL community to build KDE Plasma Desktop in EPEL.

Installation

Install epel-release

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

Enable codeready-builder or PowerTools

If RHEL 8:

• subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms

If CentOS 8:

• dnf config-manager --enable PowerTools

Install KDE

• dnf group install kde-desktop
• (Optional) dnf group install kde-media
• (Optional) dnf group install kde-apps
• (Optional) dnf install okular

(Optional if Workstation already installed) Set sddm as desktop manager

• systemctl set-default graphical.target
• dnf install sddm\*
• systemctl enable sddm -f
• reboot

(If Workstation already installed, and didn't enable sddm)

• systemctl reload gdm

(Optional) Install apps via flatpak

• dnf -y install flatpak
• flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
• flatpak install flathub org.kde.kdenlive
• flatpak install flathub org.kde.krita

Update Schedule

EPEL Users are running on a stable Enterprise Linux, and expect stability. KDE is a fairly fast updating desktop. If it isn't updated fairly regularly, it is hard to keep up with bugs and security issues. After discussion, the KDE Sig decided that a once a year update would give users the stability they want, along with the updates they need.

Update Timing

Plasma releases will be synchronized from Fedora to EPEL after each spring release (e.g., F36, F38, and so on)

The once a year update will correspond with a RHEL release. It will first go into the epel-next repo, and be built on Stream. When the corresponding RHEL release is released, all the epel-next packages will be rebuilt on regular epel.

Security and Bugfixes

This once a year update schedule will catch most of the major bugs and security issues. But there will be a period of time toward the end of the year when this gets difficult. The KDE SIG will give a best-effort attempt to backport fixes from future stable releases as needed, but if not possible, rebasing Plasma remains an option.

QT updates in RHEL

RHEL coordination for Qt will be included as part of this effort to align to spring releases