July 2018
Beginner
400 pages
12h 5m
English
Content preview from Learning Kali Linux
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Chapter 1. Foundations of Kali Linux
Kali Linux is a specialized distribution of the Linux operating system. It is targeted at people who want to engage in security work. This may be security testing, it may be exploit development or reverse engineering, or it may be digital forensics. The thing about Linux distributions is that they aren’t the same. Linux is really just the kernel—the actual operating system and the core of the distribution. Each distribution layers additional software on top of that core, making it unique. In the case of Kali, what gets layered on are not only the essential utilities, but also hundreds of software packages that are specific to security work.
One of the really nice things about Linux, especially as compared to other operating systems, is that it is almost completely customizable. This includes the shell in which you type commands and the graphical desktop you use. Even beyond that, you can change the look of each of those things. Using Linux is all about making the system work for you, rather than having the system force the way you work because of how it works, looks, and feels.
Linux actually has a long history, if you trace it back to its beginnings. Understanding this history will help provide some context for why Linux is the way it is—especially the seemingly arcane commands that are used to manage the system, manipulate files, and just get work done.
Heritage of Linux
Once upon a time, back in the days of the dinosaur, there existed an ...
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.