How to Install KDE Plasma in Arch Linux (Guide)

This guide will help you unleash the full potential of your system by showing you just how to install KDE in Arch Linux.

Introduction

While the command line is a powerful tool for some users, there is some efficiency in a GUI that a command line only system can not quite match. In fact, there are even some tools and software that won’t work at all without a UI! This guide will show you how to install KDE in Arch Linux.

Update the Package Repository

To start, update your system with this package manager command.

pacman -Syu

User Requirements

Next we need to make sure that there is a non-root user with a password and a home so that we can log in. If you do not already have this, do it like so.

useradd -m alex
passwd alex

Install Necessary Packages

Now we need to install the KDE packages plasma and sddm. The plasma package may take a while to download, so expect a wait

pacman -S plasma
pacman -S sddm
pacman -S konsole

Konsole is another package we will need in order to access the terminal once we are logged in with Plasma. Keep in mind that installing KDE Plasma will not provide you with any more programs or software. You will still need to download text editors, web browsers and a terminal emulator (in this case, Konsole.)

Start Plasma

Now that everything is installed, we’re free to finally start Plasma and enable it to run automatically whenever we boot up the system. That can be done like this:

systemctl enable sddm
systemctl start sddm

Once the SDDM service is enabled, you will then be taken to a screen where you can log in.

Conclusion

Congrats! You have now installed KDE Plasma. Now you have the power of a UI and can begin installing graphical applications like web browsers, text editors and any other software you may need on your system.