So this will be my first real post of this forum besides my intro, I hope I am putting this in the right sub category.

I have been experimenting with a few different Linux operating systems and am really trying to decide witch one to start with to modify into my preferences to use as my main permanent os hard install to my portable hdd...

So far I have ran first hard install Ubuntu witch was very easy to use in gui and tons of support for but my main interest is learning to use the terminal otherwise id just stick to my win 7, most of the tutorials I was using to learn in Ubuntu were tutorials for backtrack and things just didn’t synch right with Ubuntu.

therefore my quest lead me to Kali, it worked great with most all of the terminal stuff but ran into all sorts of trouble in order to install some new programs onto it such as tor and java and flash it just didn't want to work. I ended up crashing kali once trying to edit bash files to change HISTSIZE=1000 - HISTSIZE=10 because export wouldn't stick. Besides destroying my windows MBR twice and fixing it the bootrec.exe/fixmbr way. I have come to the conclusion that when installing kali or any other os to my portable hdd ill just completely disconnect my win 7 hdd while doing the install. Trying to install adobe flashplayer and crashing my windows flashplayer somehow while trying to install it on kali lol. Just to install tor was insanity... no scripts or guides worked, I finally got it after a whole day, zip compression inside tar.gz compression inside xz compression? Come on!! Just let me download the darn thing uncompressed... first had to extract the whole thing from xz by "xz -jxr FILENAME" something and then "tar -xvjz FILENAME" something and then "unzip FILENAME.zip" that was inside of all that...

Is this just a rant or a question?

This is what I want to accomplish for my personal Linux os...

1. Things to work like they’re supposed to-Ubuntu

2. Nifty tools I can use learning the ins and outs of computers-kali

3. Leaving no trace on other hdd's from portable boot, rout all traffic through tor, file encryption, and file wipe-tails

4. The amazing desktop GUI animations from the new-knoppix 7.2.0

Where do I start to get these features I want into 1 os I can hard install and live with and grow with?

thanks for your help guys......

I have managed to fix most of my problems..

1. things to work like there supposed to...
i was having all sorts of problems with any installs having to do everything the hard way, found out my sources.list repositorys list was severely incomplete, fixed that and apt-get works like its supposed to now.. added debain repos to my kali list too for extra goodies while i was at it, after clearing out multiple entrees i have it quite nice.

2. nifty tools....
just kept kali

3. tails stuff...
havent got that far.. reminds me to install whatever that disk wipe program is

4. cool knoppix animations
figured out how to install KDE... just what i always wanted...

damn if i just might say im getting pretty good at this stuff