using backtrack as a daily use linux distro

[shakuni]

Hi everyone,

Can I use backtrack as a daily use linux distro. I mean I am a part time security researcher and backtract is a full fledged linux distro, so is it a must that it should be used only for pentesting? Can't it be used in daily tasks...

what I intend to do is that I will install "only" BT3 on my laptop and I'll use it as a general linux distro in the day and as a security toolkit in the night

Please express your opinion on the concept...

Thanks
shakuni

[ShadowKill]

Hi everyone,

Can I use backtrack as a daily use linux distro. I mean I am a part time security researcher and backtract is a full fledged linux distro, so is it a must that it should be used only for pentesting? Can't it be used in daily tasks...

what I intend to do is that I will install "only" BT3 on my laptop and I'll use it as a general linux distro in the day and as a security toolkit in the night

Please express your opinion on the concept...

Thanks
shakuni

You can most definately use it as a stand alone OS, albeit that wasn't what it was designed for, but it is possible. Just follow on eof the many guides on installing to HDD and away you go. You may find that there are some dependancies and/or day-to-day apps that are missing (OpenOffice etc) so some updating is required, but for the most part it should suit your needs just fine.

[thorin]

Hi everyone,

Can I use backtrack as a daily use linux distro.

Firstly, we have no idea what you "can" do. You know your abilities, you decide. Secondly "can" and "should" are very different things.

Aside from there fact that it wasn't designed to be a daily use distro there isn't anything that would prevent you from using it as such. It will just take longer to setup and make friendly for such use.

[Thorn]

Hi everyone,

Can I use backtrack as a daily use linux distro. I mean I am a part time security researcher and backtract is a full fledged linux distro, so is it a must that it should be used only for pentesting? Can't it be used in daily tasks...

what I intend to do is that I will install "only" BT3 on my laptop and I'll use it as a general linux distro in the day and as a security toolkit in the night

Please express your opinion on the concept...

Thanks
shakuni

This isn't intended to be a flame against you, but I tend to be plain spoken and in my opinion is "it's a stupid thing to do". I'm a firm believer that security functions and generic 'office work' functions are completely different and should be kept separate. It such a priority for me that I keep Back|Track on a separate machine from my office laptop.

As you already know, Back|Track is set up specifically toward pen testing. What you may not realize is that it lacks a whole bunch of stuff that would commonly be lumped under the category of 'office productivity tools' such as a word processor, spreadsheet, email, database, etc. It also lacks all the normal things which are included on almost any distro, such as an IM app, music player and all the other bells and whistles.

Sure, you can use it as a "general Linux distro" by adding the things that a generic distro has, but then it becomes a half-assed general distro with great pen test tools. Would you cross a Ferrari sports with a Mack dump truck? It can only haul a little dirt, but it goes fast. And corners like crazy, but only in construction sites... Not only that, but you'll probably spend twice as much time setting up those generic apps as you would in just setting up a separate machine or a different boot partition. I also suspect that you will continuously find yourself missing some app or another, and having to go through yet another cycle of download and installation.

If HD space is a real issue simply use Back|Track as a Live CD or in a USB configuration. Both are easy and quick. The Remote Exploit guys designed it to be used as a portable distro in the first place, and that's why there are downloads for both.

Having said all that, there are people who have added all the extra stuff to Back|Track and like it that way. But to me, it seems to be an awful lot of effort for ending up with something that is neither fish nor fowl.

[wick86]

Hi everyone,

Can I use backtrack as a daily use linux distro. I mean I am a part time security researcher and backtract is a full fledged linux distro, so is it a must that it should be used only for pentesting? Can't it be used in daily tasks...

what I intend to do is that I will install "only" BT3 on my laptop and I'll use it as a general linux distro in the day and as a security toolkit in the night

Please express your opinion on the concept...

Thanks
shakuni

I think it is just personal choice which is what linux is about. I got so sick of having to reboot my laptop every time that I wanted to use one of backtracks tools so I installed it to my hard drive and I couldn't happier. I am also of the school of though less is more witch is why with the exception of my backtrack laptop all of my servers, laptops, and desktops are running Gentoo so configuration wasn't really an issue for me. I have been using linux for over 10 years and have yet to see a distros base install that has every thing i need and really who really needs four text editors two torrent clients five media players its just over kill now dont get me wrong those distros are great for beginners how want to get started with linux but for professionals there just to bloated. Well thats my 2 cents hope it helps.

[marked]

I used to use backtrack solely, primarly because I was too inexperienced/stupid to setup another distro to get virtualization working properly. Other than virtualization I quickly discovered than using a different distro was better because you aren't mixing work with pleasure so to speak and I didn't have files everywhere in no order. Now my knowledge is a lot better i'm running Gentoo as my main distro and emerged the thing is use regularly like Wireshark. I don't use half the tools in backtrack but on the odd occastion I need one I have dual boot using GRUB.

[akintoo]

Choice is th operative word here, after trying BT3 in various different ways (usb, cd, hard drive installs) i've settled on a live HDD install, 5gb fat32 and 10gb ext2 th rest of th drive is ntfs for data storage.

Using BT3 as a live install makes adding new apps as easy as dropping a new .lzm into th modules folder, any usb distro will enable you to do that. If ya cant find an lzm for what ya want download a tar.gz and install.

After adding graphics drivers, slaptget, gslapt, thunderbird, gimp, gaurddog openoffice and whatever else, you can go days without windows which is just mainly a media player now or used for MS project or access in my case.

BT3 comes with heaps of useful stuff out of th box like Juk for music, editors, process table, wine, iso master, QTparted and th list goes on to even include some fun stuff like compiz and superKarumba.

I use BT3 daily and most of th back track tools are totally wasted on me except for my experimentation, I intend to do further study in networking and security so in a few years I should be getting th full advantages of this brilliant distro.

I've also made images of th fat32 and ext2 partitions to make reinstalling or installing on a new machine very smooth indeed.

So what you want to do will work fine, just play around with it you'll learn heaps, ubuntu and slackware just did not seem to force me to learn anywhere near as much as BT has although I don't think I could get by with only one os.

[Acidictadpole]

This is my first post, but I'm going to pretty much restate everything that has been said already. It is definately possible for you to make a backtrack harddrive boot and use it as your main OS. And as many have pointed out it's not the best choice for daily use unless you only use a computer for the security options that BT provides (which is highly unlikely). But having a boot with something else for every day use is definately the suggested method.

It's going to be up to you to research what you'd like to use, but I suggest using Ubuntu. I don't have much experience with other distros. I've used RedHat, Gentoo and Mandrake before Ubuntu and I'm really happy with how Ubuntu works.

[shakuni]

Thanks for all your inputs. I think I will use backtrack as my daily use distro from now on. I'll post my experiences here if you want me to.

-shakuni

[O!NK!]

I want to hear what it is like as a daily OS, as I am buying a new laptop just for my pen-testing because I have a desktop windows. The laptop would be 100% backtrack 3 and I take it along for work to make my life easier. Pm the results of your voyage if you can :P ty