How To Install Gnome GUI on CentOS 7

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install and configuration of Gnome on your CentOS 7. By default, RHEL/CentOS 7 server was installed as minimal without any Graphical Desktop support. Installing GNOME Desktop on CentOS is fairly straightforward. Most CentOS servers are run on CLI (Command-Line Interface) mode. But in some cases, one may need to have a desktop to install some applications with GUI (Graphic User Interface) mode. In this case, we will use GNOME, the most popular user-friendly desktop for any UNIX-based system.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the GUI on CentOS 7.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: CentOS 7.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Gnome GUI on CentOS 7

Step 1. Install Gnome GUI by issuing the following command.

CentOS 7:

yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop" "Graphical Administration Tools"

RHEL 7:

yum groupinstall "Server with GUI"

Step 2. When the installation finishes, run the following command to tell the system to boot Gnome Desktop automatically at system startup.

ln -sf /lib/systemd/system/runlevel5.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target

Step 3. Reboot the system.

After you reboot the system, the system will enter into the Gnome GUI interface automatically.

Step 4. Installing additional applications.

After logging in to the GNOME Desktop, you can now go to System > Administration > Add/Remove Software to manage the application in CentOS. By using this wizard, you can install various applications similar to yum but through a GUI. Applications installed using this method will appear in the Application menu list.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Gnome. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Gnome GUI on CentOS 7 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Gnome website.