{"id":3713,"date":"2024-12-14T21:17:33","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T21:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/?p=3713"},"modified":"2025-02-28T22:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T22:07:20","slug":"building-a-new-desktop-environment-for-the-raspberrypi-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/?p=3713","title":{"rendered":"Building a new Desktop Environment for the RaspberryPi 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Regular readers of my blog will already know that I am a huge fan of the Linux operating system<\/a>, it’s clearly evident in most of the content on this website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am also a very enthusiastic user of one of the first credit card sized computers that came to be, namely the RaspberryPi<\/a>. I own all the iterations of this wonderful little computer from the very first version to the latest and greatest, RaspberryPi 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This little computer has done more for computing in education than Microsoft and Apple will ever achieve and it’s done it at an incredibly low price making it more accessible to schools, colleges and students than any other platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RaspberryPi has what most consider to be the best support on the planet when it comes to single board computers<\/a> (SBCs). From the dedicated team that build Raspberry Pi OS<\/a>, to all the amazing projects and forums that are available, for free on the internet today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RaspberryPi computer really has revolutionised computing for the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"My
My RaspberryPi 5 that I am using to write this article.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Raspberry Pi OS really is very good. It’s based on the great Debian<\/a> distro’ that many of us seasoned Linux users dearly love. It’s light weight, fast and meets the needs of everyone that is venturing into the exciting world of Linux and SBCs<\/a> for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overtime as we all become more experienced with Linux on the RaspberryPi we become more demanding and start to find the Raspberry Pi OS desktop environment lacking. Sure it can be enhanced by adding more and more to it however, it never quite reaches the point of satisfaction and we are always wishing for something more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Pi-5, the latest iteration of this great credit card sized computer, users are now able to seriously think about building a more powerful desktop environment for their little berry flavoured computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my desktop PCs dotted around the house I have used Kubuntu<\/a> for decades. It’s a slick and powerful desktop environment that has met my needs for many years and I love it more than any other Linux desktop. Sadly Kubuntu isn’t easily available out the box for the RaspberryPi and so I decided that it was time to replicate it as closely as possible on my new, super powerful RaspberryPi 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I ordered my RaspberryPi 5 from Pimoroni<\/a> I added the NVMe base and 250GB M.2 SSD drive <\/a>to the order. Up until now I’d always used SD cards however, they are slow and unreliable and so I decided that since the Pi-5 has PCIe it was time to take the step away from SD cards and start using SSD technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting the OS onto the SSD is a two stage affair. First you have to create a bootable SD card to boot the Pi-5 from and then use it via the RaspberryPi Imager <\/a>to install the OS onto the SSD. It’s a bit long winded but, easy enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I’m a huge Kubuntu fan I decided my desktop of choice for my new Pi-5 was going to be KDE-Plasma<\/a>. I had tried to install this desktop before on older model Pi’s however, it ran so slow that it was unusable. With the new Pi-5’s increased computing power and the speed of the SSD I was confident that this was now possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started out installing the Lite version of Raspberry Pi OS on the SSD. This is a command line only version of Linux that doesn’t include any desktop environment, a nice clean slate to start from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"RaspberryPi
RaspberryPi Imager showing Pi OS Lite (64bit)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once the Lite version of the OS was installed on the SSD I shutdown the Pi-5 and removed the SD card and then powered the Pi-5 back up again so that it booted from the SSD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon booting I was presented with the simple Linux Login prompt. After entering my username and password as setup during OS install I landed at the Linux command prompt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sudo su -<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
I used sudo<\/em><\/strong> to become root user as shown above and then set about building my new KDE based super computer. First I needed to update the operating system with all the latest patches and security fixes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
apt update && apt dist-upgrade<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The update and upgrade process ran for a while but, it was soon complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
reboot<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
I issued the reboot command and then  logged back in again, I was now ready to start building the KDE desktop environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo su -\napt install kde-plasma-desktop gldriver-test<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Becoming root again I type the command to install the KDE-Plasma desktop and the graphics-related config services. There’s a lot of packages to download and install so, I left it to do its thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A little while later all the packages were installed and ready to go. I now needed to tell the system to boot into the new graphical user interface instead of the command prompt using systemctl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
systemctl set-default graphical.target<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Once this was done I needed to make a change to the display settings using the raspi-config<\/em><\/strong> program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
raspi-config<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Selecting No.2 on the menu, Display Options<\/em><\/strong> and then D2 Screen Blanking<\/em><\/strong>, I disabled<\/em> screen blanking so that I got the full 4K support for my KDE Desktop<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the system had been configured for a graphical user interface there was only one thing left to do and that was to shutdown the RaspberryPi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
shutdown -h now<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The beautiful KDE-Plasma Desktop on RaspberryPi 5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Powering the Pi-5 back up again I was greeted by the standard KDE Plasma login screen and then, after logging in I was transported to the beautiful KDE desktop. I was now smiling like a Cheshire cat!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The KDE desktop is incredibly snappy on the Pi-5 with an SSD, app’s open instantly and run with  minimum CPU exertion. It was now time to load the rest of the KDE application suite to complete the build. Popping open a terminal I hit the command line once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo su -\napt install kde-full vim yakuake vlc firefox rsyslog<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This loads the full set of KDE applications adding just about everything you’ll ever need to the desktop environment. It’s about 1GB of packages and so depending on your internet speed it could take a while but, it’s well worth the wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once complete you are ready to go with a fully functional, snappy, powerful desktop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m extremely pleased with the performance of the Pi-5. KDE is super fast, snappy and responsive. With 8GB of RAM on tap the RaspberryPi has no problem with performance. The Pi-5 and KDE-Plasma really do make a great desktop computer at an incredible cheap price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking for a new computer?

Add a cheap USB sound card and a pair of speakers and this little setup will meet the needs of 90% of the population with ease and go on to satisfy the more seasoned, demanding Linux user or programmer without breaking the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More soon …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Regular readers of my blog will already know that I am a huge fan of the Linux operating system, it’s clearly evident in most of the content on this website. I am also a very enthusiastic user of one of the first credit card sized computers that came to be, namely the RaspberryPi. I own … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Building a new Desktop Environment for the RaspberryPi 5”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,287,136,132,264,4,413,375,409,410,171,38,417,418,135,411,415,37,134,122,412,351,419,354,414,416,290,215],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-commandline","category-community","category-debian","category-distribution","category-ham-radio","category-imager","category-internet","category-kde","category-kde-plasma","category-kubuntu","category-linux","category-m-2","category-nvme","category-opensource","category-pi-5","category-pimoroni","category-programming","category-projects","category-raspberrypi","category-raspberrypios","category-raspbian","category-sbc","category-sdcard","category-ssd","category-ssd-base","category-terminal","category-ubuntu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3713"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3928,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions\/3928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}