I want a CentOS 62 (amd64) KDE desktop with KDM as the GUI login manager.

My system environment is as follows: Host OS: openSUSE 11.4 .(amd64) with VirtualBox (64 bit) GuestOS: CentOS 6.2 (amd64) 10GB virtual disk

I chose the "Customize Now" option in the installer and chose "KDE" group w/o the "Desktop" group. The system boots to a CLI console. I can login and see that the KDE rpms including kdm are installed but startx gives no joy [1].

I figured that the "Desktop" group is required so chose it in the 2nd try. This time system boots with the GDM login manager; I can choose a GNOME or a KDE desktop from the GDM.

Searched around but could not find the GUI switcher applet to switch from GNOME to KDE.

Tried the method in this link (albeit it is for 5.x) http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.1/Deployment_Guide/s2-sysconfig-desktop.html

In 6.2 the file "/etc/sysconfig/desktop" does *not* exist, so I created it with the two variables - still no joy.

Finally, I hacked the script "/etc/X11/prefdm" and changed the order of the two lines in the Fallback to put kdm before gdm as shown below.

<code> .... snip .... [ -n "$preferred" ] && exec $preferred "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null

# Fallbacks, in order # order of GDM/KDM lines, changed by akk to initialize KDM exec kdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null exec gdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null

.... snip .... </code>

With above change I am getting a KDM login manager.

To be noted that line "[ -n "$preferred" ] && exec $preferred ..." does not work since my preference is KDE/KDM (it should have initialized to KDM) but instead it goes into the Fallback section wherein gdm (the original Display Manager) is initialized irrespective of what is in /etc/sysconfig/desktop.

Although, I have achieved my objective with this hack, I think I am missing something (a CLI/GUI utility) which would have allowed me to change to KDM w/o hacking the script.

Also, I noticed that the KDE menus did not list any item to install/remove and update the software packages on the system. I

Are the gtk apps. "Add/Remove Software" and "Software Update" the only tools for this tasks?

I need a minimalist KDE desktop environment with the minimum of gtk libs and GNOME apps.

Thanks for any guidance/pointers to be able do so.

[1] The installer should have automatically selected the "Desktop" group if it is essential for a graphical desktop.

TIA -- Arun Khan