How To Install GNOME GUI On Rocky Linux

This tutorial is for you if you are planning to shift to GUI mode in Rocky Linux 8 from a command line mode. You won’t get any GUI interface If you have chosen the installation type as a minimal server during the time of the installation of Rocky Linux 8.

There is an easy way to get a GUI mode with the help of GNOME desktop packages.

How To Install GNOME GUI On Rocky Linux 8

At first, we need to list down the available package groups for Rocky Linux 8.

dnf group list

You will see the output something like below:

Available Environment Groups:
   Server with GUI
   Server
   Workstation
   Virtualization Host
   Custom Operating System
Installed Environment Groups:
   Minimal Install
Available Groups:
   Container Management
   .NET Core Development
   RPM Development Tools
   Development Tools
   Graphical Administration Tools
   Headless Management
   Legacy UNIX Compatibility
   Network Servers
   Scientific Support
   .......

Now, you can see the package “server with GUI” in the above list. You need to install Gnome GUI using the DNF command in Rocky Linux.

dnf groupinstall "Server with GUI" -y

Output:

Transaction Summary
========================================================================================================================================================================
Install  990 Packages

Total download size: 872 M
Installed size: 2.5 G
Downloading Packages:
(1/990): PackageKit-command-not-found-1.1.12-6.el8.x86_64.rpm                                                                           5.8 kB/s |  26 kB     00:04
(2/990): PackageKit-glib-1.1.12-6.el8.x86_64.rpm                                                                                        139 kB/s | 139 kB     00:00
(3/990): PackageKit-1.1.12-6.el8.x86_64.rpm                                                                                             106 kB/s | 598 kB     00:05
  
.	.	.
.	.	.  

  yelp-2:3.28.1-3.el8.x86_64
  yelp-libs-2:3.28.1-3.el8.x86_64
  yelp-tools-3.28.0-3.el8.noarch
  yelp-xsl-3.28.0-2.el8.noarch
  zenity-3.28.1-1.el8.x86_64
  zip-3.0-23.el8.x86_64

Complete!

Now, run the following command to enable the GUI as the default run-level so that the Rocky Linux will boot into graphical mode at the time of startup.

systemctl set-default graphical

Output:

Removed /etc/systemd/system/default.target.
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/default.target → /usr/lib/systemd/system/graphical.target.

Now, you need to restart your Rocky Linux and start using it in GUI mode.