Kali Linux is a flavor of Linux, extraordinarily similar to Backtrack Linux. It is relatively new only version .9 or 1.0 or something like that. It features a toolkit of different security applications, once again pretty much the same as Backtrack. Currently they only offer the Gnome window management and not KDE. I’ve tested a lot of the tools on a VirtualBox so some stuff works and others don’t. I think this is mostly due to the nature of a bridged NAT. I hope to get a small netbook or something soon so I can really do some testing with it. I also plan on making a few tutorials and upload them on the website soon.
I understand why they (Backtrack/Kali) doesn’t make these fully featured operating systems. i.e. no backup or user options. But I really wish I could setup backup and change the default username from root. I mean of course you can still backup from terminal but I prefer the GUI tool as I don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up network backups through terminal.
From a hardware perspective I am able to run Kali from a dual core with 2 GB RAM and 128 MB graphics with no problems. It runs smooth and is not buggy at all even though it is early in development.
The community also seems to be pretty strong this early on. I think there will be a great deal of support and development will likely only continue to get better with this OS. I can say pretty confidently that Kali Linux use will likely surpass Backtrack in the near future.
Here are some links:
www.kali.org – Main Page
If your still learning a lot of the tools that are on Kali Linux, like me, then a quick search on YouTube for Kali Linux Tutorials or Kali Linux Hacking will give you tons of results on how to use many of the tools.
UPDATE/CORRECTION:
Kali Linux is a successor to Backtrack. This is why the tool set is the same.
Hak5 has a video tour of Kali Linux.
Some changes I’ve found are:
- New filesystem
- More wireless support
- ARM processor support