Forum Thread: Which Distro as main OS?

Hey guys!

I've seen here are a lot of Kali tutorials and i'm wondering if its worth to use it as a main OS?

I'm also a fan of archlinux and its having blackarch/archassault also, but what about the tools? Can i use kali tutorials for the same tools on arch derivates also?

Or do you prefer to use Kali as a OS?

I'm really interested in such hacking stuff, so what do you think?

Use kali? Any arch derivate? Or even something other?

8 Responses

Look, I use both and I just finished installing both on USB.
Both have good and bad things, let me share some of my experience with them:
-Kali: Always works out of the box, easy to install new stuff, easy to maintain, easy to deploy.
-Arch: Literally, a total mess. However!

Once you start understanding how Arch works (which I assume you did), it's really satisfying to use. Although Kali has almost the same customization level of Arch, if you start from a basic installation of Arch and build your own little nucleus of commands, you'll have an OS worth trying. Kali is far more reliable for sure in terms of maintaining, while Arch for me was like a "Course to Linux (which hasn't ended yet)".

You also mentioned Black Arch and Arch Assault. I don't know a lot about Arch Assault but I've heard that Black Arch has far more tools than Kali. If I had to prefer an OS, I would prefer Kali, but only because it has Gnome and the big job is already done, but keep in mind that Black Arch is worth trying. Last point (which doesn't look like it, but it is very important), Kali is, I guess, more known than Black Arch, which makes it easier to troubleshoot, while the only reliable source about Arch is Arch wiki, which sometimes can be a mess, but I'm assuming you've gone trough that. You can use the same tutorials, but you'll have to adapt it a little bit (directories, tools versions ecc...). Another important fact, if that matters to you, is EFI support. I don't know is Black Arch has it (the official Arch Live CD does), but I know Kali does. BackBox Ubuntu is a valid alternative. I also heard that Kali has traceability issues, but you should wait for confirm. These were my thoughts, I'd strongly recommend you Kali if you are at the kick off of hacking learning.

Seems like I can't stop writing wall texts.

It's okay, i appreciate such answers :)

Actually, i used Arch (plain) for like a few months now, so.. i know a bit about it and know how to maintain it.

Kali is actually more well-known, yes, and it exists more tutorials, but basically.. if there's an tutorial for sqlmap (kali) i can use it for sqlmap (arch/blackarch) aswell, since its the same tool albeit more updated (which shouldnt affect the commands on such tools much, if im no wrong).

Altough, on arch my hardware is working better, especially when you have a Keyboard with backlight, its a pain under Debian (nodejs), i never got it working, on arch > no problem! Thats why i still prefer arch or at least a "newer" distro.

I've looked into Fedora security spin and.. no way! Not worth to use.

ParrotOS seems pretty nice, but.. debian based aswell > keyboard problem.

Actually, i've heard about "pentoo", tho never used gentoo, but maybe its worth a try aswell, just for playing around with it :)

So, my current favorite is either Blackarch or simply plain arch with blackarch repos.

I love Arch in terms of customization, and actually my Mac OSX keyboard backlight works on Kali but doesn't on Arch, so it really depends on the device.

Fedora security spin? Never heard about it.

Parrot OS... I heard about it (brackets of patriotism, italian distro like BackBox!), though at first impression it doesn't look that different, but I didn't try it.

I also heard about Pentoo, but never tried it too.

I mean if you are an everyday Linux user BlackArch is ok, I prefer having my customized plain Arch too, so that I don't find myself in an ocean of tools which I don't know what are they used for, and slowly expand the list myself.

I think you would enjoy to read this eh eh: http://www.blackmoreops.com/2014/02/03/notable-penetration-test-linux-distributions-of-2014/

Already read it before i posted here :) Thanks anyways.

Well, i was distrohopping for a bit, and Arch + Fedora are my current favorites, just cause rolling distros are feeling nice especially when you have a "modern" laptop with a great hardware (formerly a gaming laptop from msi).

Debian (and its derivates such as buntu, mint), suse etc arent working great for me. Arch works impressive also does Fedora 21. Both are great distros, Fedora is more like a "out of the box, i dont care about customization"-distro and arch is a "let me begin with a naked linux and build it up like the way i want"-distro.

Yes, you are right actually. I mean.. Blackarch is like 4GB big.. the plain is around 500 MB, you can see HOW MANY tools are in it and i think most of them you will never use. My focus is on Web-security/Pentesting, later on malware analyze, but its focus is on windows, so.. i need a VM with windows in it and its tools. I dont know how many tools are in Blackarch, so.. basically i currently only need the web-based-tools, not really worth to install the 4GB with maybe 3GB of wasted bits on my HDD (maybe even more tho).

Not sure, but maybe its not always recommend to install tools you dont even know about, instead add a repo and download the tools you really want and need.

ParrotOS feels .. nice, feels like a "designed" Kali with another DE, but.. i think Kali is still the "best" debian based pentest distro out there.

I heard about Samurai Web Testing Framework (also in the article, but just heard about it), maybe it has the tools you need.

The fastest way to describe distros are statements and feelings, I agree on that ;)

I would recommend using Kali Linux as a Live USB with persistence; rather than a default OS.

ghost_

Just to add my 2 cents - I have used BlackArch, Arch, Parrot Security, and Kali. I love Kali as my old standby, however, Parrot Security has become my favorite now days. All the tutorials will work you just have to find your way around different directory structures and such.

I am really impressed with the number of tools available on BlackArch but here is what I have found...

When I started this adventure of learning pentesting/hacking and cyber security I wanted to try every tool, every exploit, every Distro, etc. The more tools the better! Until I learned that less was more.

I find ParrotSec to be very impressive and stable. I also now know that I really only use a handful of trusted tools to achieve everything I need to do. Pick your poison (fav tools) and learn them like they are part of your brain. Then you will find it really doesn't matter what your favorite LINUX flavor is your tools are always available.

Hope this helps... =)

I'm using it as main... I'm playing CTF, I'm a dev and I have no problem...

I'm just using it because I'm lazy as f and I don't have time to install tools on the new os and I did a lot of customizing to my kali ... so just remember it ... the whole point it's Linux ... maybe someday I installed arch and installed tools manually.

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