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Kali Linux 2.0 Released
An anonymous reader writes: Kali Linux 2.0 has been released, together which an assortment of interesting new features. Most importantly, Kali is now a rolling distribution, using Debian Testing as their upstream source. (Download page.) There are also huge changes to the UI, including a fully fledged, custom GNOME 3 environment, as well as support for myriad other Desktop Environments. The maintainers describe the release this way: "If Kali 1.0 was focused on building a solid infrastructure then Kali 2.0 is focused on overhauling the user experience and maintaining updated packages and tool repositories." I'm enjoying 2.0 so far. What are your thoughts and comments?
What's the goal of this distribution? Why would anyone choose it over Debian testing?
That was a coy description.
About the Kali Linux Distribution
Kali Linux is an open source project that is maintained and funded by Offensive Security, a provider of world-class information security training and penetration testing services. In addition to Kali Linux, Offensive Security also maintains the Exploit Database and the free online course, Metasploit Unleashed.
-Dave
And nobody knows this better than me.
Maybe you haven't heard, but Debian switched to using systemd a little while ago. The results have been, how should we put it, not so good. Although unwanted by much of the Debian community, systemd was forced into use through political maneuvering. It was then forced through unstable and testing much too soon. Many long-time Debian users suffered from broken installations. Ever since it ended up in Debian 8, a supposed "stable" release, far too many people have experienced problems with it. Many of its problems actually can't be fixed; they're inherently broken by their very nature. Its use of binary logging is a perfect example of this. The only way to fix binary logging is to not use it at all.
Due to how disruptive systemd was to Debian, both politically and technically, the Debian community has been split. There is the small minority who pushed for the inclusion of systemd in the first place. A small number of fanatics went off and tried, unsuccessfully, to fork Debian in to the failed Devuan distro. Many other Debian users have chosen to move to other operating systems that offer greater stability and robustness, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OS X, and even Windows.
What was once the most talented and helpful Linux community has been shattered and fragmented. The most awful thing about this whole ordeal is that it wasn't Microsoft, or SCO, or anyone outside of the project that caused so much harm. It was a self-inflicted destruction! The greatest harm to Linux isn't some corporation; it's those within the community who wish to force problematic software like systemd upon all Linux users.
Holy crap bufferbloat! 20% packetloss. No, not my connection, everyone else. Egress on my LAN is only 80Mb/s, but ingress on my WAN is over 100Mb/s and maxing my connection. Trace route some of those peers that I was downloading from. Low pings all the way into their ISP, then 1-2 hops before hitting the peer, pings skyrocket into the thousands.
Why am I seeing a 20Mb/s difference between WAN ingress and LAN egress? Those are all retransmit packets that my stateful firewall is filtering out.
If your connection has massive amounts of bufferbloat, please don't seed. You're DOS'n my connection.
...whatever you do, don't give us any fucking clues as to what the features of interest might be or why we might be interested in this particular distro.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Due to numerous issues with the latest release of KDE as delivered with Ubuntu 15.04, I switched to Gnome 3 after close to a decade of relying on KDE for my desktop. I must admit I've been too hard on Gnome 3 over the years. Although it is different and not intuitive, I did figure out how to do what I needed to do within a day, and am now quite comfortable with it.
Perhaps most important on an older system like mine, I find it is much more responsive than the latest releases of KDE.
The thing that used to make me stick with KDE was the plethora of configuration options. Most of that functionality has been stripped from the newer releases of KDE, leaving me with no reason to stick with that desktop.
The real showstopper for KDE was when I couldn't get it to automount my camera when I plugged it into a USB port. I spent over 4 hours screwing around with it before I gave up. What good is a desktop that can't even deal with basics like that?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Last time I checked, Kali had an issue in that updates were provided via an unsigned process (thus vulnerable to MITM attack). Is this still an issue?
The release claims a long list of changes: new versions of this and that.
But nowhere on the release page does it make any mention of what that means to the end user. If I run this, or upgrade from release 1, what will I be able to do, that I couldn't do before?. I don't care about features and versions or rolling this-that-or-the-other. What I need to know is why should I spent time and effort getting it, installing it and using it?
Since the announcement makes no mention, it would not be unreasonable to assume there aren't any actual, end-user, benefits. Or they'd be headlining the piece, right?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
For a distribution presumably targeted at security professionals it is rather ironic that when I try to look a their homepage I get the following:
Javascript is required. Please enable javascript before you are allowed to see this page.
I have to make myself vulnerable before I am "allowed" to see their homepage? Heh. Nice try.
I run it full time, but I'm not an idiot because I can spell "you".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."