BT4 in a VM vs Full install

[george8]

I have BT4 up and working fairly well using a VM. I am considering a full BT4 installation if there are any performance increases that would merit going full install.

I am looking for some experiences that you guys may have to share regarding any performance comparisons along these lines. By performance comparisons I don't need exacting benchmarks. I am talking about really obvious things that may come to mind. My machine has 4 Gig of RAM and when I created the VM I selected slightly over 1 Gig for BT4 so I am wondering if that alone is a handicap worth changing.

So then this thread is just to discuss the merits of VM vs full install.


BT4 is one hell of a great product. I can't believe how nice you guys have made it and how well the "packaging" is thought out.

[sickness]

You will see some nice improvements in performance but ... you need to know some things first:
1. Backtrack is a pentest distribution that means it's not like a normal OS with movies or whatever.
2. Install it only if you will use it most time in pentesting if not stick to a Live CD or VMware.
3. Most programs need to be run as root, even if you make an unprivileged user you woun't use it that much so you must know what you are doing because you might sc**w it up.

I use it as my main OS and I'm happy with it but I made a "TEST LAN" at my home where I can play with it ... so if you woun't use it stick to another OS and just use this in VMware.

[george8]

Thank you for the feedback. I will spend a few days considering your post. I think I want to learn a bit more in linux than simply pentesting stuff. I need to be honest with myself though and assess the "learning curve" and my time availability. I have a notion that if I could magically be a linux wizard I would never go back to windows again. There is a bunch of ground between that notion and where i am though.


I really like this forum and the members here are helpful as long as someone is genuinely trying to work through the "newbie" stuff.

I have already learned a bunch in the couple of weeks I have been here and I read until my eyes bleed. One nice thing about a VM is that I can copy it to my desktop and play with commands so that if I screw up its a simple delete and start over. I really like that part of a VM approach for newbies that have a habit of creating issues while running in sudo su. Being honest, I have re-copied my VM a number of times already during this learning curve.