An easier and generic way to install KDE Linux into VM

Tips and Tricks
1

Installing KDE Linux in a VM is a bit tricky and VM-dependent because we don’t have an ISO installer.

Here is an easier and generic way to install from the KDE Linux raw file to a VM. I have tested on the following:

  • VMware Workstation Pro
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
  • Oracle VirtualBox

The basic idea is self-writing by VM, from the download page to the disk.

Prerequiste

We need two key things.

1. An Live linux ISO file

We use a live Linux ISO file as a temporary tool. After installation, this ISO file is not needed anymore. Ubuntu based distribution is easier to follow the following procedure.

2. A VM with two disks

We need two disks on the target VM. Let’s say /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.

Device name Role Size
/dev/sda Target to install KDE Linux As you want
/dev/sdb Distination for the raw image > Raw file

The raw file will be written to the /dev/sdb. I have set its size to 8 GB.

How to write the raw file

As preparation, follow the steps :

  1. Boot the VM with the Live Linux ISO.
  2. Open the KDE Linux download page with a browser.
  3. Copy the URL of the raw file to write.
  4. Open a shell window.
  5. Run the following commands: sudo apt update && sudo apt install ca-certificates curl.

Then, we run the following command to download the raw file and write it to the disk.

curl -L <URL> | sudo dd bs=1M of=<device-name>

where <URL> and <device-name> are the URL of the raw file and the disk name ( eg, /dev/sdb ), respectively.

In my case, it was :

curl -L https://files.kde.org/kde-linux/kde-linux_202601300311.raw | sudo dd bs=1M of=/dev/sdb

Installation

Shut down the VM and reboot it from the /dev/sdb. Now, you can see the KDE Linux installer.

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