9.7 and EPEL/KDE Plasma Workspaces

1

I’d install a VM using the 9.7 minimal iso. New alma user. Been using Cent forever though so familiar with the procedures.

Installed CRB and EPEL repos. Both are enabled.

Then tried to install KDE

dnf groupinstall “KDE Plasma Workspaces”

and get the message

Module or group “KDE Plasma Workspaces” is not available

dnf group list doesn’t show KDE.

I tried rebuilding dnf cache:

 sudo rm -rf /var/cache/dnf
 sudo dnf clean all
 sudo dnf makecache --refresh

Still no luck.

Lots of other Groups are available like “Workstation” but me and Gnome don’t get along. I really want KDE. This is not a good intro to Alma.

Any ideas on what is up?

2

I have AlmaLinux 9 and:

# dnf -q group list
Available Environment Groups:
   Server with GUI
   Server
   Workstation
   KDE Plasma Workspaces
   Virtualization Host
   Custom Operating System
Installed Environment Groups:
   Minimal Install
...

# dnf -q group info "KDE Plasma Workspaces"
Environment Group: KDE Plasma Workspaces
 Description: The KDE Plasma Workspaces, a highly-configurable graphical user interface which includes a panel, desktop, system icons and desktop widgets, and many powerful KDE applications.
 Mandatory Groups:
   Core
   KDE
   Standard
   base-x
   fonts
   guest-desktop-agents
   hardware-support
   input-methods
   multimedia
   networkmanager-submodules
   print-client
 Optional Groups:
   KDE Applications
   KDE Educational applications
   KDE Multimedia support
   firefox
   office-suite

# dnf -q repoinfo epel
Repo-id            : epel
Repo-name          : Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 - x86_64
Repo-status        : enabled
Repo-revision      : 1767745374
Repo-updated       : Wed 07 Jan 2026 02:23:24 AM EET
Repo-pkgs          : 24,814
Repo-available-pkgs: 24,797
Repo-size          : 19 G
Repo-metalink      : https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-9&arch=x86_64&infra=$infra&content=$contentdir
  Updated          : Thu 08 Jan 2026 07:46:53 AM EET
Repo-baseurl       : http://mirror.vpsnet.com/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/ (88 more)
Repo-expire        : 172,800 second(s) (last: Thu 08 Jan 2026 07:46:53 AM EET)
Repo-exclude       : slurm*
Repo-filename      : /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo
Total packages: 24,814

Top links from the metalink for my region:

    <url protocol="https" type="https" location="DE" preference="100">https://mirror.netzwerge.de/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="http" type="http" location="DE" preference="100">http://mirror.netzwerge.de/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="rsync" type="rsync" location="DE" preference="100">rsync://mirror.netzwerge.de/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="https" type="https" location="BG" preference="99">https://mirrors.uni-ruse.bg/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="rsync" type="rsync" location="BG" preference="99">rsync://mirrors.uni-ruse.bg/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="http" type="http" location="BG" preference="99">http://mirrors.uni-ruse.bg/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="https" type="https" location="UA" preference="98">https://epel.ip-connect.info/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="http" type="http" location="UA" preference="98">http://epel.ip-connect.info/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
    <url protocol="rsync" type="rsync" location="UA" preference="98">rsync://epel.ip-connect.info/fedora-epel/9/Everything/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url>
3

Thanks. That gives me some info to go on. When I did

dnf -q repoinfo epel

The output just said

Total packages:0

So something is screwy there. And oddly enough I tried installing Rocky 9.7 last night and got the same exact thing as alma is giving. Maybe EPEL repo is having temp probs right now. Anyhow at least that gives me something to investigate.

4

The EPEL has many mirrors around the world. Some may have issues occasionally. That affects all EL systems that try to use EPEL from those particular mirrors.