I don't know that there are any specific difficulties that need mentioning other than Kali, like its predecessor Backtrack, are theoretically aimed at penetration testing and therefore are making the assumption that users installing these distros at least have a reasonable clue how to deal with Linux. I mean, would you hire someone to do penetration testing on your computers who didn't have a firm grasp of the command line or could function on a computer that didn't have a GUI? In terms of difficulty, it probably isn't any more "difficult" than Slackware or Gentoo. Someone with a brain and a will to use it will do fine. A complete novice won't find any handholding though.

What I personally find offensive about Kali/Bactrack is their focus on breaking stuff. Security should be about learning how to lock things down, keep the bad guys out, you know like NOT putting your passwords in a plain text file named password.txt. Once you've got your system hardened, THEN you can try and break it. But with Kali's focus on damage first, nobody learns how to fix what is wrong in the first place. Would you hire a plumber who only knows how to rip pipes out and doesn't have a clue how to solder?

@Teufel It's like any other Linux distro. The maintainer wrapped some nice tools in it and is trolling for script kiddies

If you have backed up (all home netted PC's,) don't keep sensitive data plus under stand the law and no ignorance of it is allowed (or you live in China hehe) go for it... or, install sid for "real danger" [grin] and check out Nmap++.

http://wooledge.org/~greg/sidfaq.html [e-vile-grin] Guffaw!

They desire to occupy a "Linux for hackers" niche, no more.

Though I do not understand, why it marked as a Linux for experts and hackers?
There is nice instruction for hackers how to deal with Kali iso:
http://docs.kali.org/installation/ka...ve-usb-install

Does experts or hackers really need such an instruction? Can someone imagine an expert who do not knows how to put the iso to the usb stick with dd?
It seems for me as usual newbie-friendly distro with newbie-friendly instructions about how to put it on the stick.

Yes, it has some tools for hacking preinstalled. But I hacked my neighbour's wifi few years ago with Ubuntu and aircrack-ng. Does it means that Ubuntu is a distro for hackers and experts?

There are no especial Linux distros for experts only as well as there are no dangerous tools. There are people who can use it properly and who can't.

Do you mean that Debian Sid is something dangerous?

Because of the tools they package. You don't let rank beginners do penetration testing on your systems because a) they don't know what they are doing and b) they generally don't know what to look for or analyze the results they do manage to get.

Now you're starting to get at why I don't like Kali. The tools on Kali aren't restricted to Kali, they can be run on pretty much any distro. But by packaging it in an easy-to-install distro they are are only helping the skiddies.

So what did you learn from this? That wifi is insecure? You could have learned exactly the same thing by reading a couple of articles. Did you go help your neighbor harden their wifi afterwards? Or did you just leave them vulnerable? When I interview "security" experts, one of the questions I ask is how to they go about evaluating and hardening a wireless network. If they mention aircrack or any of its kin, the interview is over and they aren't getting hired. This is my real beef with Kali and others, they are putting truly malicious tools in the hands of idiots.

I apologize, it was actually my mistake because I took you for the OP - wasn't paying much attention. That's why I was talking about you installing it! :)

However, others have already answered it for me. Likewise, I wouldn't recommend Gentoo or Slackware to start with if you're new to Linux, for instance, even if there's enough documentations and so on. For someone who's new to Linux, the experience might be very quite intimidating (I remember trying to configure the wifi client on Slackware and it took a while and I could only bind it to a certain SSID etc.).

But you're also right in that if the OP wants to try it, he should, even if what others said confirms that it isn't the best distro to start with.

BackTrack ran KDE which is quite user friendly, I used it back in the day as a newb. (I don't know Kali?)Nicknamed after the kid in Toy Story who loves braking toys so technically it could be bad for hardware but I would not worry there, software on the other hand could be fun hacking. :)

Member response
 

Hi,
I totally disagree with the above.
Most major Gnu/Linux have some form of support documentation that a user should/must read to get valuable information 'RTFM' is good habit to gain useful knowledge and understanding that will aid the new user, be she/he an experienced Gnu/Linux or complete newbie user should be able to read for understanding. When in need of help those same users should know how to compose a query that is understandable so the forum members are able to aid in diagnosis of their problem.

I see no issue with recommending a Gnu/Linux like Slackware, Gentoo or whatever Gnu/Linux that is considered to be difficult. One just needs to learn the semantics, syntax via personal experience or using the valuable documentation to step through using that Gnu/Linux. 'man command' is one of the best documents for users to use in order to learn system basics. Point & click is just a means that is provided by a programmer to express a series of commands. You will learn point & click, not the command level base usage while in the command line. Do not get me wrong as I do use GUI when I want. I feel comfortable on the command line to execute what I want executed to perform a task(s).

Hope this helps.
have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

You might be right, I won't disagree with you, but 'man command' is generally the most cynical advice you can offer to a newbie if it's not accompanied by specific explanations.

In my opinion, you already need to know what you're doing and what that command does before turning to it. 'Man command' is extremely discouraging for the beginner. You only get the most austere syntax, there are virtually no examples and you can't find your way around it (or I guess you can, but without any use). Man doesn't even exist on Centos 6.6 anymore, as far as I know, being deprecated by info, I think? So basically when you forget something (you knew before), man is perfect.

I love youawkward. :D

I agree too; read and do, repeat. But, we are at a point with Linux distros where... how many people read the microcoughed-windblows manual?

To the OP however you won't be able to use 99% of those tools without reading and reading,,, although the CBT-Nuggets or school are nice too. (;

thnx guys