Ed, I have re-installed this system and selected the "KDE Plasma Workspaces" but without any optional packages since there is at least one pkg that fails and TERMINATES the installation. I wrote a bug report on that. The installation should at least allow the user to go back and de-select the failing package(s). Sigh... Your input was VERY valuable... when you said/implied that your installation worked out of the box. I was able to ssh to the VM as a general user WITH NO CHANGES REQUIRED but root was disallowed. /var/log/secure reported words to the effect "uid NOT >= 1000" as the cause of the root failure. I think I goofed with the sshd_config file. So, again, THANKS for your help. George... Poc. You suggested that this should go to the tst mailing list. Isn't that for testers? Maybe that's what I am? I enjoy being on the bleeding edge and reporting bugs. So, thanks for your input. George...