[Artista]

Hey guys,

So if anyone here (probs quite few) use Kali Linux, I'd like to ask you for your personal expirience on this "new" Linux Distribution.

Why?
Simply because I am planning to have Dual-boot Windows and Kali Linux. (Btw, any suggestions / feedback on this idea? Is it smart to do that?)

Basically I am seeking for answers on questions like:

• What are your first impressions?
  
• How is it compared to Windows? (write some short pros and cons)
  
• How is it opposed to other Linux Distributions?
  
• How would you rate it ? (from 1 to 10 .. 10 being the best)
  
• Did you have any problems with installing it ? (espec. those who did USB Dual-boot install)
  

etc.

Questions are indeed more oriented for those who used / use Windows also, hence I am doing it too.


A

[lady_godiva]

1) What are your first impressions?
Generally a good impression. Especially because it's better than Backtrack 5 as it's Debian based.

2) How is it compared to Windows?
Windows can be used for daily used, Kali should NOT be used for non-pentesting activity. Generally your question could be interpreted as: make a comparison between Windows and Linux. There is an abyss between them. Cannot list them all in an entire post. They cannot be compared, they are simply to different.

3) How is it opposed to other Linux Distributions?
It's designed for pentesting so it has everything you need related to pentesting. The distribution come with minimal software needed by pentesters etc. It's not a "general purpose" distribution. Simply most Linux distribtion can be used as daily OS, Kali is not meant for that as has verious security flaws.

4) How would you rate it ?
7, this mark it's given only considering its pentesting functionality. In my opinion there are some important tools missing and others, like John the ripper, with default installation, which is not really suitable for maximum efficiency. As you develop skills in pentesting and related, the best is to install manually all the tools you need with the configurations that best suits your purpose.

5) Did you have any problems with installing it ?
No, installing Kali is no different than installing other OS. It's all about creating correct partitions.

[chmod]

Kali is for all intents and purposes a modified version of Debian. Although Debian is a pretty solid distribution Kali unfortunately is not. It's primarily a pen testing distro aimed at security professionals and advanced Linux users, and as such is designed to really be used either in a VM (virtual machine) or booted from removable media. Although it does have the ability to be installed to a hard drive ether as a single OS or in a duel boot setup and will play nice with Windows most of the time.

Comparing it with Windows is useless in my opinion as is comparing any other OS with another one as each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, comparing it with other distros I would say it depends on what the primary use would be, for a pure pen testing OS used by a professional its OK (In my opinion its far better to use another distro and build up the tools as and when they are needed) but quite bloated, yes it has hundreds of hacking tools but in a real world situation you will only ever use a handful (and write quite a few of your own) so there is a lot of wasted space. If you plan to use this for daily tasks or learning Linux my advice to you would be to choose a different distro as Kali is pretty unstable and has a lot of security holes which could lead to your network being compromised (due to the nature of how the tools work, several ports are opened by default and the default account is root)

Rating it on a scale of 1-10 is pure opinion but if you want mine I'd give it maybe a 6

Installation is pretty straightforward and uses the standard Debian installer with a few UI tweaks, and shouldn't usually cause any problems as long as you read the text on screen and follow along with them.

Personally I would use a more stable distribution and install the tools I needed rather than have a lot of applications that I will never use (something like Debian, Mint or Ubuntu is fine for a beginner, with Debian being slightly more advanced)

[Artista]

Thanks for replies. So I guess that I was thinking correctly, when I was assuming Kali is really for "hacking" use. By design, I like it, but I thought it's something that can replace my Windows.

Just to clarify something for myself: Do you need Linux for those hacking tools? Or is e.g. Aircrack-ng available for Windows?

A

[chmod]

Thanks for replies. So I guess that I was thinking correctly, when I was assuming Kali is really for "hacking" use. By design, I like it, but I thought it's something that can replace my Windows.

Just to clarify something for myself: Do you need Linux for those hacking tools? Or is e.g. Aircrack-ng available for Windows?

A

Aircrack is available for Windows, however it has very limited hardware support and a lot of the tools used are exclusive for Linux.

Most Linux distros make a great alternative to Windows IMO and are capable of performing a variety of tasks. There are a few things it's not really good at though such as gaming (although its starting to improve slowly) and movie streaming from services such as Netflix (which again can be done but is a pain to get working due to the Linux community refusing to allow allow the DRM stuffed applications that they insist on using)

[lady_godiva]

Thanks for replies. So I guess that I was thinking correctly, when I was assuming Kali is really for "hacking" use. By design, I like it, but I thought it's something that can replace my Windows.

Just to clarify something for myself: Do you need Linux for those hacking tools? Or is e.g. Aircrack-ng available for Windows?

A

A limited subset of Linux tools is also available on windows. For some of them only the source is given, hence there's no exe, and you must be able to compile them on you own.

The only noticeable tool that runs only on Windows (and not on Linux) is Cain & Abel, which is a very powerful tool, worth taking a look at.

For pentesting and related activity use a Linux machine. You can possibly use a MAC OS X too as it's UNIX based

[Artista]

Thanks again guys. So I just might install Kali then, because I'd like to learn Pen-testing and if that's the best way, why not. But still I'll try to find some tools to pen-test also with windows, if possible.

A

[Ex094]

All the tools which come installed in Kali OS Can be installed on a Regular Linux OS, hence it isn't necessary to use Kali for hacking purposes, you can install tools on your existing OS as well.

[xXfireball127Xx]

I use Kali a fair amount. I have a live disk on a 16 GB USB flash drive that I tend to carry on me. I highly recommend it, you just have to know how to use the provided tools!