Booting your RHEL basic server mode (CLI) to Desktop Mode (Graphical)

Release:

RHEL 6

Problem:

Booting your RHEL basic server mode (CLI) to Desktop Mode (Graphical).

Solution:

In this document we are concentrating on the migration of the existing basic server installation (CLI Mode) into a Desktop installation (graphical mode). In order to perform such a migration perform the below steps.

Configure Yum using the Installation Media:

1. Mount the RHEL 6 installation media on to your /mnt directory.

[root@lvs1 ~]# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/

mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

2. Create the a repo file pointing to the /mnt directory as below:

[root@lvs1 ~]# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/yum.repo

[rhel]

baseurl=file:///mnt/

enabled=1

gpgcheck=0

3. Check your repository by using the below command:

[root@lvs1 ~]# yum repolist

Loaded plugins: product-id, subscription-manager

Updating Red Hat repositories.

Repository 'rhel' is missing name in configuration, using id

rhel                                                     | 4.0 kB     00:00 ...

repo id                             repo name                         status

rhel                                  rhel                             3,480

repolist: 3,480

4. Here we are able to view our 3,480 packages from the media.

Check for the Graphical environment packages available in the media:

The following group package needs to be installed to boot your RHEL6 system into a graphical desktop environment.

ü  Desktop

ü  Desktop Platform

ü  X Window System

You may use the below command for listing the packages from your yum repository if present:

[root@lvs1 ~]# yum grouplist "Desktop" "Desktop Platform" "X Window System"

Loaded plugins: product-id, subscription-manager

Updating Red Hat repositories.

Setting up Group Process

Repository 'rhel' is missing name in configuration, using id

Installed Groups:

   Desktop Platform

Available Groups:

   Desktop

   X Window System

Done

Once confirmed that the required group packages are present in your yum repository, you may install the group packages that is not installed in your system. You may use the below command to start the installation of the group packages.

[root@lvs1 ~]# yum groupinstall "Desktop" "Desktop Platform" "X Window System"

Update your inittab file to boot into graphical environment:

You may use the below command to edit your /etc/inittab file to boot into the runlevel 5 by default.

[root@lvs1 ~]# sed -i 's,^id:.:initdefault:,id:5:initdefault:,' /etc/inittab

Now switch to the graphical mode by simply giving the below command.

root@lvs1 ~]# init 5

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