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INSTALL A MINIMAL KDE ON DEBIAN 10 “BUSTER”

by PragmaticLinuxOctober 21, 2020October 21, 2020

If you select the KDE desktop environment, while installing Debian, the
installer installs several extra desktop applications. Kmail, Knotes,
Korganizer, Kaddressbook, to name just a few. Not all KDE users are interested
in these extra desktop applications. However, when attempting to remove them,
Debian removes the entire KDE. Luckily, a method exists to install just a
minimal version of KDE in Debian. Grab yourself a drink and read on to find out
how you can install a minimal KDE on Debian.


BACKGROUND

When I first got started with Linux, I did a fair amount of distro-hopping
before finally settling on Debian. The one thing I haven’t really settled on, is
my preferred desktop environment. Most of the time I use either XFCE or Gnome.
Recently, I got this itch to give KDE a try again.

After installing Debian with KDE and logging in for the first time, I noticed a
lot of extra desktop applications that I have no need for. Take Kmail for
example. I expect that Kmail is a great e-mail client, but I personally prefer
Thunderbird. No big deal, right? Just remove Kmail and install Thunderbird.
Wrong! Look what happens when you attempt to remove Kmail:

A bit of a big screenshot. The gist of it: the Debian package manager intends to
remove the entire KDE desktop environment. With other words, you cannot just
remove individual KDE software applications. I figured another way must exist,
to install just a minimal version of KDE on Debian. So without installing all
these other KDE software applications. Luckily, this is possible. This article
explains step-by-step how to install such a minimal version of KDE on Debian.


THE WRONG WAY TO INSTALL A MINIMAL KDE IN DEBIAN

When you plan on installing the KDE desktop environment, you typically select
KDE Plasma during the Debian installation:

This essentially means that package kde-standard gets installed. Once the
installer completes and you login to your shiny new KDE desktop, you’ll notice
the presence of the following extra KDE specific desktop applications:

 * Akregator – RSS/Atom feed aggregator
 * Ark – archive utility
 * Dragonplayer – simple video player
 * Gwenview – image viewer
 * Juk – music player
 * Kaddressbook – address book
 * Kate – powerful text editor
 * Kcalc – calculator
 * Kde-spectacle – screenshot capture utility
 * Kmail – email client
 * Knotes – sticky notes
 * Kopete – instant messaging
 * Korganizer – calender and personal organizer
 * Okular – univeral document viewer
 * Skanlite – image scanner

All great desktop applications, just all KDE and Qt specific. For that reason
not everyone wants these on their Linux system. They might be used to their
Gnome and GTK3 based counterparts. However, when you attempt to remove the KDE
specific desktop applications, Debian will remove the entire KDE desktop
environment. So definitely not the way to go.

This means that if you plan to install the KDE desktop environment in Debian,
but you do not want all of the above listed desktop applications, do NOT select
KDE Plasma during the installation. Instead, follow the procedure outlined in
the remainder of this article.


THE RIGHT WAY TO INSTALL A MINIMAL KDE IN DEBIAN


DOWNLOAD THE DEBIAN NETWORK INSTALLATION ISO

To install a minimal version of KDE in Debian, it suffices to install from the
small network installation ISO. Go ahead and download the 64-bit PC netinst.iso
image from the Debian website:

Once downloaded, create a bootable USB stick with this installation image, for
example with Rufus. When installing Debian with a minimal KDE in a VirtualBox
virtual machine, connect the ISO file to the emulated optical drive instead.


START UP THE DEBIAN INSTALLER

Boot your system from the installation image as you would normally do to install
Debian. This starts up the Debian installer. Continue with the installer as you
normally would, but pause the moment you get to the Software selection page.

TIP: DISABLE THE ROOT ACCOUNT

On a side note, here’s a little tip that not everyone realizes: if you do not
enter a root password, the Debian installer disables the root account for you
and automatically adds your newly created user to the sudo group. This is highly
recommended from a security perspective:


DO NOT SELECT KDE PLASMA

The trick to install a minimal version of KDE in Debian is to NOT select KDE
Plasma during the installation on the Software selection page:

Besides not selecting KDE Plasma on the software selection screen, complete the
Debian installation as usual. Once the installation completes, boot your Debian
system for the first time. You won’t see a fancy graphical login screen, just a
simple terminal login:


MANUALLY INSTALL A MINIMAL KDE IN DEBIAN

Login into your system from the terminal and run the following command to
manually install a minimal version of KDE in Debian:

sudo apt -y install kde-plasma-desktop plasma-nm

Once the installation completes, issue a system reboot with command:

sudo reboot

After the reboot and logging in, Debian presents you with your freshly installed
KDE desktop environment:

When installing a minimal KDE version like this in Debian, only the following
default KDE applications are available:

 * Dolphin – file manager
 * Kfind – file search utility
 * Konsole – terminal program
 * Kwrite – basic text editor
 * Konqueror – web browser


INSTALL ADDITIONAL KDE DESKTOP APPLICATIONS

After installing the minimal version of KDE in Debian, you are of course free to
still install some of the other KDE specific desktop applications. The added
benefit of this approach is that you can now actually remove them as well at a
later point, without risking the entire KDE desktop environment being
uninstalled.

As a personal example, I prefer installing the following KDE specific desktop
applications: Ark, Kate, Kcalc, Kde-spectacle, and Okular. The command for this:

sudo apt -y install ark kate kcalc kde-spectacle okular


WRAP UP

Installing the KDE desktop environment in Debian, installs a lot of additional
KDE specific desktop applications. If you are like me and not interested in all
of these, you’ll probably attempt to simply remove them manually. If you attempt
to do so, you are in for a surprise: your entire KDE desktop environment will be
removed as well. Not a desirable outcome.

This article presented an alternative solution, where Debian only installs a
minimal version of KDE. The trick is to not select KDE Plasma on the Software
selection screen of the Debian installer. Once your newly installed Debian
version boots up, manually install the packages kde-plasma-desktop plasma-nm
from the terminal and reboot. You now have a minimal version of KDE on your
freshly installed Debian system.

Of course you can still install some of the extra KDE specific desktop
applications, as presented in the last section of this article. Added benefit is
that you can afterwards actually remove them, without the unwanted side effect
of your entire KDE desktop environment being uninstalled.

I hope you found this article an interesting read. Feel free to contact
PragmaticLinux for other topics you would like to see covered in the future.

Taggeddebiankde


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Install a LAMP stack on Debian 10 “buster”
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Install a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate on Debian 10

PRAGMATICLINUX

Long term Linux enthusiast, open source software developer and technical writer.

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