Backtrack v2.0

I'd recently wiped my installation of Slackware 10.2 from my Toshiba Satellite 1805-S274 in favor of a security-oriented live distro that I could install onto the laptop's drive. I opted for Hakin9, a distro based on Aurox.

Hakin9 is now based on Aurox v12.0, which is based on FC5. It was nice but I ran into issues. My first issue was that I used an older version that was included in an old issue of Hakin9 magazine. I checked their latest magazine and it was apparent that they'd been using an OLD version of Aurox when building their distro. I got a more recent version and it installed successfully. While testing Aurox (I believe v12), it was apparent that the setup would run optimally on a recent laptop, while it was overheating mine. I didn't feel like delving internally into the settings and downloading packages that would enable me to use Fluxbox instead of KDE, so I decided to try another distro.

My next choice was Backtrack v2.0. I was very impressed with the live CD, so I took the next step of installing to hard disk. The install was MUCH quicker than Hakin9. I'm also partial to Slackware and Backtrack is Slax-based. Backtrack is a merge of the Whax and Auditor security/penetration-testing distributions.

My only issue with Backtrack is the fact that there's no software repository for updating all the security tools. Slackware has third-party package management that can be used in Slax and Backtrack, but my thoughts are that when updating Nessus, for instance, the dependencies that were originally installed may need to also be updated, which is fine, but which could be a bit tedious. The install of Backtrack was quick enough to where I could just manually upgrade what I need upgraded then reinstall the distro when new versions are released.

This distribution is solid!