Best for beginners?

[Shade_of_Gray]

You can install any OS onto a HDD.
What I'm trying to wrap my head around is why you're trying to go with the pentesting OS's. In my own experienced opinion, it would make more sense to learn how to use linux fluently before you go trying to use a pentesting OS and tools that are generally all ran on a terminal that you wouldn't know how to use.

It makes sense to me. You want to learn everything, and you want to learn it fast, so you dive right in to the middle of everything with a pentesting OS.

It's only when you've done that a couple times that you start to learn that it doesn't work, and there's so much new stuff going on that you can't focus long enough to learn anything, and you finally give up and go do something else.

So mShred's right. Start with learning just Linux. Don't try to learn everything; pick one thing and master that. Once you're comfortable working with Linux, move on to something else. If you bite off more than you can chew and try to go for everything at once, you'll get frustrated. Take it in small, bite-size pieces, and you'll be up and going before you know it.

[Hadra85]

I want to use one of the pentesting OS's because of the tools that come with them.

i've been looking around all day for testing tools for just Ubuntu and hardly any of them are compatible.
It may have been because i installed ubuntu 12.10... which... not even WINE is compatible with...

i might roll it back to 12.04 and try that.

If there is an OS where i can do the basic stuff, and have the advanced stuff for later thats what i want.
So far im not happy with Ubuntu though. nothing works with it...and good heavens the ugly sidebar is gawd awful to look at. i like the designs that Backbox and Blackbuntu use. seem trimmed down, more responsive.

[tuxtheevilpenguin]

I don't see how they wouldn't be compatible with ubuntu, all the pentesting OS as far as I know are bassed on ubuntu. I can see what you are saying about the unity desktop. Try kubuntu it uses KDE (same as backtrack) and it's meant to be used as an everyday OS. It's pretty fast too, I run it just fine on a pretty old laptop with two desktops and it really only lags if I'm running two really processor or memory heavey programs at the same time.
Backbox is a nice distro I have that and backtrack on live disks but I only use thoes when I want all the tools. I agree with the others find a nice beginner friendly distro. Learn to navigate that first, get used to using terminal (or konsole) as part of your normal computer usage. Many of thoes tools you want the pentesting OS for will only run in teminal and you will have to use comand line, which will be much easier to get if you first get comfortable with using it for basic daily tasks.

[Hadra85]

Retrying Ubuntu.

Blackbuntu never installed. just gets stuck on the splash logo at boot.

need to buy a thumbdrive as all my DVD's are now filled with OS's that wont install.......

what do you recommend for a new Ubuntu user?
what programs, apps, commands set ups?
customization?

[Amazingred]

NOTE:: the lines following ## you do NOT put in the console.


##Start off...
Check your sound and make sure it works. If you double click the sound icon and it never finds the service do this:
search files for "pulseaudio" Find the application named exactly that and get its address (mine was '/usr/bin/pulseaudio
open system > Startup Applications
Find the one that says "Start the pulse audioi sound system" and edit it replacing the location with the one you searched for. Save and exit.

##Check your wifi connection.
##open System > Network Connections > you should be able to WING it here but....if you arent getting any access points open a console and type...
iwconfig
## be sure you see your wifi card here. It will most likely be named wlan0 (you'll probably see a "lo" and a "eth0" as well.)
##If you have made it to this point MESSAGE me and i'll walk you through the rest of getting your pc set up...

## next

##open a console

Code: Select all


sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

##Next round of code

aptitude 
##pretty sure you'll have it already...if you get a message saying aptitude not found blah blah blah then do:this
sudo apt-get install aptitude

##in aptitude you' can use the interface to update the database of available packages and updates.  its not normally used anymore since apt-get does the same thing but this way you'll be able to browse through the packages availible and get an idea of what you may or may not want to install....
##usage:  first things first, when you see a letter.....hit that letter on the keyboard.  SHortcuts are listed beside each command in the menu bar...
u
g
g
u
g ##if necessary....updating and upgrading takes a while.  This is essentially the same thing as sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade


check some of these out: xmbc, reaver, john, oclhashcat, Cinnamon, Gnome3, wireshark, airodump-ng, hydra, cain and able, virtualbox, xchatirc, geany, INSERT PROGRAMMING LIBRARIES AND ENVIRONMENTS AND TOOLS ETC OF HOWEVER MANY LANGUAGES YOU WISH.....k that list should keep you busy for at least 4 days.

[Hadra85]

You Sir are a scholar and a gentleman. I wonder if any of the tools in blackbuntu or bt5 can be downloaded? Is possible to switch between KDE and gnome without swapping out the OS?

[mShred]

You can pretty much install whatever programs that backtrack and blackbuntu have onto Ubuntu. And yes, you can switch between KDE and gnome with OS's. But you'd have to install and configure it. And to install dekstop environments, you'd need a solid amount of knowledge with using a terminal. Which is something that you won't have, because all you want to do is use the skid tools that come with backtrack to haxor shiz up. Why do you want to switch desktop environments anyway?

[tuxtheevilpenguin]

This, All the tools in BT and the other pentesting distros are in synaptic package manager so you can use thoes tools in any debeian or ubuntu bassed distro. You can also sudo apt-get install most if not all of them.
I don't know why you would want to change desktops, you can but it's really more trouble than it's worth.

[Hadra85]

You can pretty much install whatever programs that backtrack and blackbuntu have onto Ubuntu. And yes, you can switch between KDE and gnome with OS's. But you'd have to install and configure it. And to install dekstop environments, you'd need a solid amount of knowledge with using a terminal. Which is something that you won't have, because all you want to do is use the skid tools that come with backtrack to haxor shiz up. Why do you want to switch desktop environments anyway?

i don't like the defualt deskstop style of ubuntu. its cluttered. and i feel like my screen is always cramming everything in to fit.
if i can get rid of the ugly sidebar, and use something that has shortcuts at the top that preferable.

yea i was interested in the tools and tutorials that came with.
but if i can install each of these programs one by one thats fine too.

no haxoring here.... just education.

[tuxtheevilpenguin]

<br><br>i don't like the defualt deskstop style of ubuntu. its cluttered. and i feel like my screen is always cramming everything in to fit.<br>if i can get rid of the ugly sidebar, and use something that has shortcuts at the top that preferable.<br><br>yea i was interested in the tools and tutorials that came with.<br>but if i can install each of these programs one by one thats fine too.<br><br>no haxoring here.... just education.

This is why I sugested kubuntu it's alot less clutterd.