Installing the GNOME GUI on CentOS 7

We assume that you have already installed CentOS (if not already, you can rent VPS with this operating system), and you have root or superuser rights. In this case, we will write commands as the root user. If you are not a root user, just put sudo before all commands.

First, we update the system. This is not always required, but doing so is good practice:

We are waiting for the installation of updates to complete and move on to the next step.

Now we install the GNOME packages. To install them, we will use a command that installs all packages related to the GNOME GUI:

The program that runs the graphical environment on most Linux systems is called the X Window System. So, firstly, you must tell the X Window System that GNOME is the default GUI. To enter this command:

Now we have finished installing GNOME and configuring the X Window System. Let's verify this by entering the command:

After running this command, you will see the GNOME GUI, similar to the image below, which means that it works:

Now the GNOME GUI is installed and tested. However, to start it, you must enter the command startx every time you start the operating system, which is not very convenient. Let's make it start automatically. To do this, use the following command: