How To Install Xfce Desktop on AlmaLinux 9

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Xfce Desktop on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, The Xfce desktop environment is one among the several desktop environments that you can install on our Linux system to enhance user experience. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user-friendly.

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 Xfce desktop environment on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: AlmaLinux 9.
• 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 Xfce Desktop on AlmaLinux 9

Step 1. First, let’s start by ensuring your system is up-to-date.

sudo dnf clean all
sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf update

Step 2. Installing Xfce Desktop on AlmaLinux 9.

By default, Xfce is available on the AlmaLinux 9 base repository. Simply run the following command below to install the Xfce Desktop to your AlmaLinux system:

sudo dnf groupinstall "Xfce" "base-x"

Now you should set XFCE by running the following command to start automatically on boot time:

echo "exec /usr/bin/xfce4-session" >> ~/.xinitrc
sudo systemctl set-default graphical

When you are done, reboot your server:

reboot

Step 3. Accessing Xfce Desktop Environment on AlmaLinux 9.

Once successfully installed, Now log off from the current user and login back in once again. On the login screen, you can choose the Xfce Desktop session and click on “Sign In” or enter your password and then press Enter to log in.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Xfce. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Xfce desktop environment on your AlmaLinux 9 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Xfce website.