Z1gn@l
2013-06-04, 12:38
When I first used backtrack – I loved it. Because I felt it was a platform with which you could never stop learning stuff from. Networks, OS, hardware .. it was limitless in terms of potential for a person who had some elementary knowledge or os, networks etc.
With Kali – I have to admit that gnome kept me away from it... and i kept on fiddling with BTR2. I believe, for anything to be perceived well by a human, be food or technology, all or the maximum number of human senses should be invoked well. Touch, see,smell, hear and taste...except maybe smell & taste, the rest applies to an OS – keyboard responses from terminal, eye candy desktop, the startup tone – action response tones … etc
Since there is no point winging if you are not going to do anything about it... I decide to run my age old favorite fluxbox on kali ..
So, the following are a few actions we will do today
1. Remove grub or mimic its removal
2. Change the default grub wallpaper and boot resolution
3. Change apt-get source list and install a software manager
4. Get rid of GDM
5. Login with the traditional command line interface
6. Start x automatically on login
7. Change screen resolution
8. Setup fluxbox as the default WM on login.
This is what I wanted to get to.
90
91
92
1. Setting up your environment
Your VM I would recommend has 2 cores and around 1200 RAM alloted to it with 25 GB disk.
Network – autodetect
Update your source.list to look like the following
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 _Kali_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20130327-17:54]/ kali contrib main non-free
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 _Kali_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20130327-17:54]/ kali contrib main non-free
## Security updates
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali main contrib non-free
deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali kali main contrib non-free
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free
Run apt-get update and then apt-get upgrade. This will take a while
Install synaptic (apt-get install synaptic)
Install software-center if you want (apt-get install software-center)
if you dont like the away synaptic looks in your environment (I didnt either) – download and install lxapperance to make changes (apt-get install lxapperance) – to change default fonts – would recommend gnome-tweak-tool
Install open-vm-tool by apt-get install open-vm-tools. (forget the vmware tools)
Run apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse to fix your mouse movements and reboot
Kali Documentation : http://docs.kali.org/general-use/install-vmware-tools-kali-guest
2. Getting Fluxbox into the picture
Download fluxbox from http://fluxbox.org/download/
extract the tar file and cd into to run and run - ./configure ; make ; make install
Reboot and choose fluxbox from for your session in gdm
Choose your theme – I choose zimeck-darkblue. You can find a lot more of them from the fluxbox site
customize your gnome-terminal to have
No tabs
font as terminus 10
uncheck allow bold text
uncheck menubar by default
change cursor shape to underline.
Colors – Green on black and palette scheme – tango
tranparent background to your levels
disable scrolbar and enable unlimited scrollback and scroll on output or keystroke
save close and restart gnome-terminal.
Download the wallpaper you want as set it up using fbsetbg -c wallpaper name
3. Change grub look and feel
Download an image you want to setup as grub wallpaper and replace the /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png with it. Remember it needs to be in the png format is what I found.
download startupmanager – a gui tool to change grub configuration and rebuilt it apt-get install startupmanager
run startupmanager and change the following
timeout in seconds to 0
display resolution to 1024x768 and colour depth to 24
uncheck show boot splash and ensure show text during boot is enabled
in the advanced tab change resolution to 1024x768
What this will do is not let your choose an option during load and start the system straightaway at a higher resolution and change the default wallpaper.
4. Changing init services and startx
download and install the following
xinit – apt-get install xinit
sysv-rc-conf – apt-get install sysv-rc-conf
run sysv-rc-conf to stop gdm during startup (tab to uncheck and 'q' after to exit). What this will not do is remove gdm from startup and drop you on a simple login prompt on the whole screen. Feels very retro and much appealing to me.
Post login to make sure fluxbox starts with fluxbox at the right resolution create a .xinitrc file and add the following
xrandr -s 1440x900
startfluxbox
run startx and you will have your flux.
If you want fluxbox to startup automatically after you login at the command prompt, create a .bash_login file in your home directory and add startx to it.
With .bash_login and .xinitrc in place, after your login startx will be invoked which will invoke fluxbox.
Additional tools I found useful were
fbrun (as fbrun -bg black -fg white -title "Enter Command" -w 500 -h 25 in your fluxmenu as “Execute..”)
geany as the editor (apt-get install geany)
xfe as the file manager (apt-get install xfe)
libreoffice (use synaptic)
claws mail for your mails
a good usb network adapter.
92
With Kali – I have to admit that gnome kept me away from it... and i kept on fiddling with BTR2. I believe, for anything to be perceived well by a human, be food or technology, all or the maximum number of human senses should be invoked well. Touch, see,smell, hear and taste...except maybe smell & taste, the rest applies to an OS – keyboard responses from terminal, eye candy desktop, the startup tone – action response tones … etc
Since there is no point winging if you are not going to do anything about it... I decide to run my age old favorite fluxbox on kali ..
So, the following are a few actions we will do today
1. Remove grub or mimic its removal
2. Change the default grub wallpaper and boot resolution
3. Change apt-get source list and install a software manager
4. Get rid of GDM
5. Login with the traditional command line interface
6. Start x automatically on login
7. Change screen resolution
8. Setup fluxbox as the default WM on login.
This is what I wanted to get to.
90
91
92
1. Setting up your environment
Your VM I would recommend has 2 cores and around 1200 RAM alloted to it with 25 GB disk.
Network – autodetect
Update your source.list to look like the following
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 _Kali_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20130327-17:54]/ kali contrib main non-free
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 _Kali_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20130327-17:54]/ kali contrib main non-free
## Security updates
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali main contrib non-free
deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali kali main contrib non-free
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free
Run apt-get update and then apt-get upgrade. This will take a while
Install synaptic (apt-get install synaptic)
Install software-center if you want (apt-get install software-center)
if you dont like the away synaptic looks in your environment (I didnt either) – download and install lxapperance to make changes (apt-get install lxapperance) – to change default fonts – would recommend gnome-tweak-tool
Install open-vm-tool by apt-get install open-vm-tools. (forget the vmware tools)
Run apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse to fix your mouse movements and reboot
Kali Documentation : http://docs.kali.org/general-use/install-vmware-tools-kali-guest
2. Getting Fluxbox into the picture
Download fluxbox from http://fluxbox.org/download/
extract the tar file and cd into to run and run - ./configure ; make ; make install
Reboot and choose fluxbox from for your session in gdm
Choose your theme – I choose zimeck-darkblue. You can find a lot more of them from the fluxbox site
customize your gnome-terminal to have
No tabs
font as terminus 10
uncheck allow bold text
uncheck menubar by default
change cursor shape to underline.
Colors – Green on black and palette scheme – tango
tranparent background to your levels
disable scrolbar and enable unlimited scrollback and scroll on output or keystroke
save close and restart gnome-terminal.
Download the wallpaper you want as set it up using fbsetbg -c wallpaper name
3. Change grub look and feel
Download an image you want to setup as grub wallpaper and replace the /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png with it. Remember it needs to be in the png format is what I found.
download startupmanager – a gui tool to change grub configuration and rebuilt it apt-get install startupmanager
run startupmanager and change the following
timeout in seconds to 0
display resolution to 1024x768 and colour depth to 24
uncheck show boot splash and ensure show text during boot is enabled
in the advanced tab change resolution to 1024x768
What this will do is not let your choose an option during load and start the system straightaway at a higher resolution and change the default wallpaper.
4. Changing init services and startx
download and install the following
xinit – apt-get install xinit
sysv-rc-conf – apt-get install sysv-rc-conf
run sysv-rc-conf to stop gdm during startup (tab to uncheck and 'q' after to exit). What this will not do is remove gdm from startup and drop you on a simple login prompt on the whole screen. Feels very retro and much appealing to me.
Post login to make sure fluxbox starts with fluxbox at the right resolution create a .xinitrc file and add the following
xrandr -s 1440x900
startfluxbox
run startx and you will have your flux.
If you want fluxbox to startup automatically after you login at the command prompt, create a .bash_login file in your home directory and add startx to it.
With .bash_login and .xinitrc in place, after your login startx will be invoked which will invoke fluxbox.
Additional tools I found useful were
fbrun (as fbrun -bg black -fg white -title "Enter Command" -w 500 -h 25 in your fluxmenu as “Execute..”)
geany as the editor (apt-get install geany)
xfe as the file manager (apt-get install xfe)
libreoffice (use synaptic)
claws mail for your mails
a good usb network adapter.
92