It's been a long time since we posted guides about installing Desktop environment in Arch Linux. Now is the time to see another DE installation. This brief tutorial describes how to install GNOME desktop environment in Arch Linux. I tested this guide in latest Arch Linux version, and I hope this will work on other Arch-based systems such as Antergos, Manjaro Linux etc. We already have written about installing Budgie, Deepin, MATE DEs in Arch linux. If you're interested, take a look at the following guides.
- Install Budgie Desktop Environment in Arch Linux
- Install Deepin Desktop Environment in Arch Linux
- Install MATE Desktop Environment in Arch Linux
How To Install GNOME Desktop Environment In Arch Linux
First of all, make sure you have updated your Arch Linux system.
$ sudo pacman -Syu
After updating, reboot Arch Linux to apply the latest updates.
$ sudo reboot
Next, Install X Window System (xorg) using command:
$ sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-server
Finally, install GNOME Desktop environment using command:
$ sudo pacman -S gnome
This command will install all required applications including the gnome display manager for the GNOME desktip environment.
Start and enable gdm service:
$ sudo systemctl start gdm.service
$ sudo systemctl enable gdm.service
You can, however, use other popular DMs (display manager). Here is the popular graphical DMs used by most Linux operating systems.
- LightDM — Cross-desktop display manager, can use various front-ends written in any toolkit.
- LXDM — LXDE display manager. Can be used independent of the LXDE desktop environment.
- MDM — MDM display manager, used in Linux Mint, a fork of GDM 2.
- SDDM — QML-based display manager and successor to KDE4’s kdm; recommended for Plasma 5 and LXQt.
- XDM — X display manager with support for XDMCP, host chooser.
For instance, if you want to install LXDM for GNOME DE, run:
$ sudo pacman -S lxdm
Stop any other running DMs:
$ sudo systemctl stop gdm.service
$ sudo systemctl disable gdm.service
And then start and enable lxdm service at boot:
$ sudo systemctl start lxdm.service
$ sudo systemctl enable lxdm.service
Finally, reboot your Arch system to log in to the GNOME desktop environment.
$ sudo reboot
Log in to the newly installed DE:
Here is how GNOME DE looks like in my Arch Linux VM.
Have any sound problems? Install pulseaudio package.
$ sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa
That's it. Start using your Arch Linux GNOME desktop.
More good stuffs to come. Stay tuned!
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5 comments
Awesome. Simple and precise. Much appreciated.
One thing I would add is
pacman -S gnome-software-packagekit-plugin
to allow for package and updates installation via GNOME’s Software app.
Do not use Gnome software app with Arch. That would be kinda weird and most likely for sure break Gnome. It has nothing to do with pacman so yea not good advice.
This doesn’t work for me. Followed to the letter and get a black screen with a flashing cursor. Tried other managers lightdm and sddm. Nothing. I mean, I could get a GNOME desktop on Gentoo building from freaking source. How is this more complicated? Apparently a few others on Reddit have also had GDM fail.
I got the same result.