Hello everyone. I'm new to Linux,I've been using Windows OS (XP,6,7 &,8) for about 10 years. I've decided to switch over to Linux in attempt to gain enough experience to use the more advanced Linux distros (Kali, Backtrack, Red-Hat & others) for pen testing & network security as well as general server administration.

Where do I begin?

Hi welcome to the forums, best starting place is distro watch, grab a bunch of different isos with different desktops and give them all a try,dont be afraid to distro hop, we all did (do) it, I'd suggest somthing reasonably easy to start like mint, then maybe debian ( and yes I know mint is debian based ), then try some of the more hands on distros like arch and slackware and when you have learnt enough come over to Linux From Scratch the one TRUE linux

http://tldp.org/

And distrowatch.com to find your distros homepage. The homepage of which will help you with most things specific to that distro.

unfortunately "Backtrack" is NOT advanced

it is DEAD AND VERY UNSUPPORTED , DO NOT USE .

and RHEL you NEED!!! to pay for!!!
there are no "if's and's or but's " on that
buy the required redhat support contract

or

use the FREE clone "CentOS 7.1 )

so "vista" is 6 ??????

Alahx,
why kali?
for server admin, perhaps Debian?
I take it you are not talking about a pc?

Fred.

Kali for a network security project im working on.

Alright guys, thanks for the advice.

I was thinking about using laptops for distro
hopping not much space for
A tower in my room.



-Alex

These days a laptop can pretty much do everything a desktop can do.

What type of server are you looking to run? Any Linux distro is capable of providing server services. In general, I'd lean toward to more stable and established distros for a server: Slackware, Debian, OpenSUSE, CentOS (which is a RHEL clone), even Mint 17 (which is a long-term support release supported through at least 2019). (Of that list, I'm particularly partial to Slackware and Debian.)

Linux Voice Issue 15 has a nice intro to pen testing with Kali. I've been poking my way through the tutorial, not because I ever intend to use the skills, just increase my understanding of what goes on. If you don't want to spring for a copy, they will release it under CC-SA nine months after the publication date.