Install GNOME on Kali Linux and Make It the Default
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To install GNOME on Kali Linux, run sudo apt update and then sudo apt install -y kali-desktop-gnome. Part way through, the installer will stop and ask which display manager you want — pick gdm3 for the GNOME login screen — and after a reboot you choose GNOME from the small gear icon next to the password box. That prompt is the whole reason this goes wrong for people: dismissing it without reading is what produces the black screen everyone ends up searching for.
"This isn't the desktop from the videos"
Jake got his old course virtual machine updated and working again last week, which was supposed to be the end of it. It was not. He came back with a different complaint entirely.
"The desktop is wrong. Every tutorial I'm watching has this bar across the top and a big grid of icons. Mine has a taskbar at the bottom like Windows 98. Did I install the wrong Kali?"
"You installed the right Kali. The videos are old," Ethan said. "Or the person making them changed their desktop, which is a thing you can do in about four minutes."
"So the desktop isn't… part of Linux?"
"It is a program. That's the bit nobody explains. On Windows the desktop is Windows — you cannot uninstall the Start menu. On Linux the desktop is an application like any other, and you can have several installed at once and pick one at the door."
That single idea is most of what people actually need here. The rest is one command, one prompt that catches everybody, and some honest advice about whether you want this at all — because there is a real reason Kali stopped shipping GNOME.
How Kali's desktop got here
Worth ninety seconds, because it explains why half the guides you will find contradict each other.
| When | What changed | Why it still matters |
|---|---|---|
| Before 2019.4 | GNOME was the default desktop | Every guide older than that assumes you already have it, so it never tells you to install anything. |
| 2019.4 | Xfce became the default | This is the moment your desktop stopped matching the tutorials. Performance was the driver. |
| Since then | Desktops became clean metapackages | Switching is now one package name, not a page of commands. Most guides predate this. |
| Recent releases | GNOME moved toward Wayland and away from Xorg | The one change that can genuinely affect your tooling. Covered below. |
The practical takeaway: if a guide tells you to install a long list of individual packages, or to edit configuration files by hand, or to reinstall Kali entirely, it was written before the metapackages existed. None of that is necessary now.
Installing it
Check you have room first, because this is a large install and course virtual machines are often given tight disks:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y kali-desktop-gnome
Budget a couple of gigabytes for GNOME and what it drags along with it, and leave headroom beyond that. An install that runs out of disk halfway leaves the package system in a half-configured state, which is a considerably worse problem than the cosmetic one you started with.
A metapackage, incidentally, is a package that contains no files of its own — its entire job is to depend on a sensible set of other packages. kali-desktop-gnome installs nothing itself; it simply means "everything Kali thinks a GNOME desktop should have." It is why this is one command rather than forty.
The prompt that catches everybody
Somewhere in the middle, the installer stops and shows a blue text screen asking you to choose a display manager, listing gdm3 and lightdm.
A display manager is the program that draws the login screen and starts your session after you type your password. That is its whole job. gdm3 is GNOME's own and looks like GNOME; lightdm is lighter and is what Kali pairs with Xfce. Either can launch either desktop, so this is a choice about appearance and memory, not capability.
⚠️ Do not hold Enter through this screen
It arrives in the middle of a long wall of scrolling install output, and the natural instinct is to dismiss it. Skipping it can leave the system without a clear answer about which program owns the login screen, and the symptom is a black screen on the next boot — the single most common way this goes wrong. It is completely recoverable, and it is much easier to just read the prompt.
When it finishes, reboot.
Choosing GNOME, and switching back
At the login screen, click your username first. The session picker does not appear until you have, which is why people conclude it is missing. Then look for a small gear or cog icon near the password box. Clicking it lists every desktop session installed on the machine.
Pick GNOME, type your password, and that is the switch. The display manager remembers your last successful choice and offers it by default next time, so selecting GNOME once is what "making it the default" actually means. There is no configuration file to edit.
If you want GNOME's own login screen as well, and you chose lightdm earlier or want to change your mind:
That brings the same list back so you can choose again. It is the same command whichever direction you are going.
✅ Keep Xfce installed
The obvious next thought is to remove Xfce and reclaim the space. Do not, at least not yet. Only the desktop you log into is running, so an unused one costs disk and nothing else — and it is your escape route. If a GNOME update ever leaves you at a broken login screen, having an Xfce session in that gear menu is the difference between a minor irritation and an evening with a rescue USB.
When it goes wrong
Black screen after rebooting
This looks like a dead machine and almost never is. Press Ctrl+Alt+F3 to reach a plain text console and log in with your normal username and password.
If that works — and it usually does — the system underneath is completely healthy and only the graphical layer is confused. Which is very good news, and it means the fix is one command:
sudo reboot
Nine times out of ten the cause is the prompt from earlier being skipped. Setting the display manager explicitly resolves it.
The gear icon is not there
Click your username first. On both gdm3 and lightdm the session picker is hidden until a user is selected, and this accounts for the overwhelming majority of "there is no option to choose GNOME" reports. If you have clicked your name and there is still nothing, the install did not finish — run it again and watch for errors rather than assuming.
It logs in and immediately throws you back out
A login loop usually means the session cannot start for one specific user rather than for the machine. The quickest diagnostic is to pick the other desktop from the gear menu. If Xfce logs in cleanly, the problem is GNOME's configuration for your account, not your password and not the system — which is exactly the situation where having kept Xfce installed pays for itself.
It installed, but everything is now slow
That is not a fault. See below, because it is the honest reason Kali left GNOME in the first place.
Whether you actually want this
Most pages that explain how to do a thing never pause to ask whether you should. Two reasons here are worth weighing before you commit an evening.
GNOME is heavier, and virtual machines feel it
This is the reason Kali switched, stated plainly. GNOME wants more memory and leans harder on graphics acceleration — which a virtual machine emulates rather than truly provides. On a VM with 2 GB of RAM the difference is not subtle. Give it 4 GB or more, turn on 3D acceleration in your hypervisor, and GNOME is perfectly pleasant; it will simply never be as quick as Xfce on identical hardware.
If your Kali runs on an old laptop or a single-board computer, Xfce is not a consolation prize. It is the correct answer, and it is why it ships as the default.
Wayland, and why it can break your tools
This is the one that genuinely matters on a security distribution, and it deserves care.
Linux has been moving from an old display system, X11, to a newer one called Wayland. Under X11 any application could read the screen and see what other windows were doing — convenient, and also exactly the design flaw Wayland set out to fix. Wayland isolates applications from each other by default.
Which is better for security, and awkward for a toolkit built on the old assumptions. Anything that captures the screen, injects keystrokes, or inspects other windows may behave differently or refuse to run. GNOME has been moving toward Wayland for years and recent releases have been dropping the old Xorg session that used to serve as an escape hatch.
🙋♂️ Jake's Reality Check
"So I might install this, and then something in my course just… stops working, and I won't know it's because of the desktop?"
Yes, and that is the honest risk. It will not announce itself. A tool will fail in some vague way and nothing will connect that to a decision you made about how the desktop looks.
Ethan's advice, and he is firm about it: install GNOME if you want it, keep Xfce, and if anything starts misbehaving, log out and try the same thing in Xfce before you debug the tool. Thirty seconds of testing rules out an entire category of problem.
The other desktops, and undoing all this
GNOME is one of several. They all install identically, and they coexist without argument, because the login screen simply lists whatever sessions it finds:
| Package | Suits |
|---|---|
kali-desktop-xfce | The default. Light, fast, what Kali tests against most. |
kali-desktop-gnome | Modern and polished, if you have the memory to spend. |
kali-desktop-kde | Highly configurable, familiar to Windows users. |
kali-desktop-mate | Traditional layout, lighter than GNOME. |
kali-desktop-lxde | Very light. For genuinely old hardware. |
kali-desktop-i3 | Keyboard-driven tiling. Excellent, and a real learning curve. |
Our older, broader guide to changing the desktop environment on Kali covers moving between them generally; this page is deliberately just the GNOME route.
Removing GNOME again
Log into Xfce first. Removing the desktop you are currently sitting in is how people manufacture the black screen they were trying to avoid.
sudo apt autoremove
sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm
And to state it plainly, because a surprising number of guides get this wrong: you never need to reinstall Kali to change desktop. These are ordinary packages. Adding and removing them is routine.
Where the gear menu gets its list
This is a small thing that makes the rest of the page make sense, and it turns "the option is missing" from a mystery into something you can check.
The login screen is not clever. It reads a folder, and every desktop that installs itself drops a small text file in there describing how to start it:
ls /usr/share/wayland-sessions/ # the Wayland ones
If gnome.desktop is sitting in one of those folders, the session exists and the login screen will offer it — so if you cannot see it, click your username first, because the menu stays hidden until you do. If the file is genuinely absent, the install did not complete, and running it again while watching for errors is more useful than any amount of clicking.
It also explains the Wayland business from earlier in physical terms. Two folders, two ways of drawing the screen, and which one your session comes from decides how some tools behave.
Making it pleasant to actually use
A fresh GNOME session in a virtual machine is usually a slightly disappointing experience for about ten minutes, and then it is fine. Three things account for nearly all of that.
The window is small and will not resize
The desktop sits in a little rectangle in the corner, refuses to fill the screen, and there is no matching resolution in the display settings. This is not GNOME. Your virtual machine is missing its guest tools, which are what let the desktop resize itself when you resize the window, and which also enable a shared clipboard between Windows and Kali:
sudo apt install -y virtualbox-guest-x11
# VMware
sudo apt install -y open-vm-tools-desktop
Reboot afterwards. One honest wrinkle: automatic resizing is historically happier on the older X11 session than on Wayland, so if it still misbehaves, that is another small nudge toward Xfce for VM work.
It feels sluggish
Install GNOME Tweaks and turn off animations. It is the single biggest improvement available, it takes a minute, and on an emulated graphics adapter the difference is genuinely large:
While you are in there, GNOME's workspaces are worth ten minutes of your attention. Super opens the overview, and moving between workspaces keeps a terminal, notes and a browser in separate spaces rather than in one pile of overlapping windows. On a small VM screen that is the feature that justifies GNOME more than anything cosmetic.
Extensions, and why they break
GNOME's extensions add docks, system monitors, tray icons and so on. The friendliest way to manage them is the dedicated app rather than a browser:
The thing to know before you rely on any of them: extensions are tied to a specific GNOME version. When Kali rolls forward and GNOME jumps a major version, extensions that have not been updated by their authors simply stop loading. Nothing is broken and nothing needs fixing — it is how the system protects itself from running code written for a different release.
So enjoy them, and do not build a workflow that falls apart without one. That is advice from watching people rebuild the same three extensions after every upgrade for years.
🔬 How this was tested
Everything below was re-checked against a current Kali install on 8 August 2026:
- The metapackage route confirmed as the current method — one package name, not the list of individual components older guides walk through.
- The display-manager prompt confirmed as the real failure point. Everything else in this process is forgiving; that one screen is not, and it is where the black-screen reports come from.
- Recovery through Ctrl+Alt+F3 confirmed as the right first move, because it separates "the machine is broken" from "the login screen is misconfigured".
- Version numbers are best read off your own machine with
gnome-shell --version. Kali rolls forward continuously, so whatever you have is almost certainly newer than any number a guide could print.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
How do I install GNOME on Kali Linux?
Run sudo apt update followed by sudo apt install -y kali-desktop-gnome. That single metapackage pulls in GNOME along with the pieces Kali expects alongside it. Part way through, the installer asks which display manager should handle logins and offers gdm3 and lightdm. Choose gdm3 if you want a GNOME-flavored login screen. Reboot when it finishes.
Why does Kali use Xfce instead of GNOME by default?
Kali switched its default from GNOME to Xfce with the 2019.4 release, mainly for performance. Kali is run overwhelmingly in virtual machines, on older laptops and on small single-board computers, and Xfce is dramatically lighter on memory and processor than GNOME. The change also gave Kali a consistent look it could control. GNOME remains fully supported, it is simply no longer what you get out of the box.
What is the difference between gdm3 and lightdm?
They are display managers, which means they draw the login screen and start your desktop session after you type your password. gdm3 is GNOME's own and matches GNOME visually. lightdm is lighter and is what Kali uses with Xfce. Either one can start either desktop, so the choice is about appearance and resource use rather than capability.
How do I switch between GNOME and Xfce after installing both?
At the login screen, click your username first, then look for a small gear or cog icon near the password box. That opens a menu listing every session installed, including GNOME and Xfce. Pick one and log in. Your choice is remembered for next time, so this is a one-click switch rather than a reinstall, and it is why keeping both is usually sensible.
How do I make GNOME the default desktop on Kali?
Select GNOME once from the gear menu at the login screen and log in. The display manager remembers your last successful session for that user and offers it by default from then on. If you also want GNOME's own login screen, run sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3 and choose gdm3 when the list of display managers appears.
Should I remove Xfce after installing GNOME?
Usually not. Keeping both costs a couple of gigabytes of disk and nothing else, because only the desktop you log into is actually running. More importantly, it is your way back: if GNOME will not start after an update, an Xfce session at the login screen is the difference between a small annoyance and a system you cannot use. Remove it only if disk space is genuinely tight.
How much disk space does GNOME need on Kali?
Budget a couple of gigabytes for the metapackage and everything it pulls in, and give the machine room to work afterwards. If Kali is in a virtual machine created from a course template, the virtual disk is often sized tightly, so run df -h before you start. An installation that runs out of space part way through leaves the package system half configured, which is a worse problem than the one you were solving.
I installed GNOME and now I get a black screen after rebooting. What now?
Switch to a text console with Ctrl+Alt+F3, log in there, and run sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3 to set the display manager explicitly. This nearly always follows from dismissing the display-manager prompt during installation, which leaves the system without a clear answer about who draws the login screen. If the text console works, the system is fine and only the graphical layer is misconfigured.
Does GNOME slow Kali down in a virtual machine?
Noticeably, yes, and this is the honest reason Kali moved to Xfce. GNOME wants more memory and leans harder on graphics acceleration, which virtual machines emulate rather than provide. On a VM with 2 GB of RAM the difference is severe. With 4 GB or more and 3D acceleration enabled in your hypervisor it is perfectly usable, just never as brisk as Xfce on the same hardware.
Will GNOME on Wayland break my security tools?
Some of them, yes. Wayland deliberately isolates applications from one another, so anything that captures the screen, injects keystrokes or reads other windows can behave differently or not work at all. Recent GNOME releases have been dropping the older Xorg session, so the fallback that used to fix this is disappearing. If your workflow depends on those tools, that is a genuine argument for staying on Xfce.
What other desktop environments can I install on Kali?
Kali ships metapackages for several: kali-desktop-gnome, kali-desktop-kde, kali-desktop-xfce, kali-desktop-mate, kali-desktop-lxde and kali-desktop-i3. They install the same way and coexist happily, since the login screen simply lists every session it finds. Installing three of them to try them out is fine, and costs only disk space.
Why is my Kali GNOME screen resolution small and stuck?
Your virtual machine is missing its guest tools, which is what lets the desktop resize itself when you resize the window. Install virtualbox-guest-x11 on VirtualBox, or open-vm-tools-desktop on VMware, then reboot. Automatic resizing has historically worked more reliably on the older X11 session than on Wayland, so if it still misbehaves after that, the session type is the next thing to try.
How do I install GNOME extensions on Kali?
Install the Extension Manager app with sudo apt install -y gnome-shell-extension-manager, which is friendlier than going through a browser. One thing to expect: extensions are tied to a specific GNOME version, so when Kali rolls forward and GNOME jumps a major release, any extension its author has not updated will stop loading. Nothing is broken when that happens, so it is worth not building a workflow that depends on one.
How do I uninstall GNOME from Kali if I change my mind?
Log into an Xfce session first, so you are not removing the desktop you are currently sitting in, then run sudo apt remove kali-desktop-gnome followed by sudo apt autoremove. Set the display manager back with sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm. Doing this from inside a GNOME session is how people end up staring at a black screen.
Do I need to reinstall Kali to change the desktop environment?
No, and you never did. Desktop environments are ordinary packages on Kali, so adding, removing and switching between them are routine package operations. Guides that tell you to reinstall are describing a problem that does not exist. The only thing a reinstall gives you is a clean starting point, which is a different question entirely.
Which GNOME version does Kali have?
Whichever one the current Kali release packages, which moves every few months because Kali is a rolling distribution. Rather than trusting any number written in a guide, check your own machine with gnome-shell --version. If you want the newest available, updating Kali itself is what brings a newer GNOME, because it arrives through the normal package updates like everything else.
Can I install GNOME on Kali running under WSL?
It is possible but it is rarely what you actually want. WSL is built around a command line, and although modern Windows can display Linux graphical applications, running a full desktop environment inside it adds complexity for very little benefit. If you want a Kali desktop, a virtual machine gives you a better experience with far less arguing. Use WSL for the terminal tooling it does well.
What Jake ended up with
GNOME, as it turns out. He gave the virtual machine another two gigabytes of memory first, which took longer than the install did, and he kept Xfce sitting in the gear menu where Ethan told him to leave it.
He has used it twice since. Both times because something behaved oddly and it was quicker to log into Xfce and see whether the problem followed him than to work out why.
"So I installed a whole desktop to match some videos," he said, "and the useful part turned out to be the one I already had."
"That happens more than you'd think. Keep the boring option in reach and the interesting one stops being risky."
If your Kali is now looking the way you wanted it to, the rest of the site assumes a working, current system: confirming which version you are actually on, getting Bluetooth working, or running an AI model offline on the same machine.
Revision note. Originally published 22 October 2020, not long after Kali moved its default desktop to Xfce, and rewritten on 8 August 2026. The method has genuinely got simpler since then: Kali's desktop metapackages turned this into one package name, so the longer sequence in the original is no longer needed by anyone. Three things are new because they did not exist or did not matter in 2020 — the display-manager prompt is now named as the real cause of the black screen people report, the recovery route through a text console is spelled out, and GNOME's move toward Wayland is flagged because it can genuinely affect security tooling on a distribution like this one. If you do end up at that black screen, please do not panic and reinstall: the machine is almost certainly fine and one command brings it back. And if your experience differs from what is written here, tell us — desktops move quickly and reader reports are how this page keeps up.