Table of Contents
Enhancements and accessibility
17. Install a theme
Installing theme and revving up your desktop is a great idea. Kali default desktop is dull and boring. There’s two different ways you can change theme.
- Manually install theme
- Install theme via PPA repository
Read details here to and find out how to change or install GTK3 themes in Kali Linux.
18. Install a new desktop environment
I prefer XFCE Desktop, but you can try to install/remove different Desktop Environments or Window Manager in Kali Linux Depending on which one you need choose links below:
- How to install/remove XFCE Desktop Environment in Kali Linux
- How to install/remove different KDE Desktop Environments in Kali Linux
- How to install/remove LXDE Desktop Environment in Kali Linux
- How to install/remove GNOME Desktop Environment on Kali Linux
- How to install/remove Cinnamon Desktop Environment in Kali Linux
- How to install/remove MATE Desktop Environment in Kali Linux
Finally, follow follow these instructions to permanently switch Desktop Environments.(i.e. boot into XFCE instead of GNOME).
19. Enable Autologin user
It’s a simple change. Just open and edit the file called /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf, assuming you’re using GNOME Display Manager(gmd3) a your main Display Manager. You might want to try out other desktops as well. Here’s a link to Add/Remove different desktop Managers in Kali Linux.
root@kali:~# leafpad /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf
In the daemon section un-comment the 2 lines for automatic login. It should finally look like this
[daemon] # Enabling automatic login AutomaticLoginEnable = true AutomaticLogin = root
That’s it. Too easy. In case you’re wondering how to use a different user than root, here’s how
[daemon] # Enabling automatic login AutomaticLoginEnable = true AutomaticLogin = myanotheruser
Last but not the least, reboot to check if it worked. (which it will, cause it’s Linux and Kali is awesome)
reboot
You might want to follow up on this one or if you’re KDE user, then here’s the instructions to Auto login root user at system start in Kali Linux – GNOME and KDE. This article also shows how to auto-login a different non-root user… quite handy.
More Advanced stuffs:
This part explains how to get more out of your system, specially Graphics card.
20. Unlock GPU processing
Last but not the least, GPU processing is a lot faster when you’re trying to break a password. Depending on your Graphics card, you choose options as outlined below:
a. AMD
Then follow rest of the guides here
b. NVIDIA
I found that official documentation for installing NVIDIA Drivers doesn’t work for Kali Linux due to a UVM error. Following two posts will take you through installing NVIDIA official driver and CUDA+Pyrit (updated 26/08/2014)
What can I do with Kali Linux?
You can do a lot. Here’s some starting guides for those who are interested: (updated 26/11/2014)
Cracking Wifi WPA/WPA2 passwords
- Cracking Wifi WPA/WPA2 passwords using pyrit cowpatty
- Cracking Wireless WPA2 WPA passwords with Hashcat
- Cracking Wifi WPA/WPA2 passwords using Reaver-WPS
Cracking password hashes
DOS/DDOS attacks
Metasploit related
SQLMap and Google Dorks
These will surely keep you busy for few days. I suggest looking around in Kali forums and generally Google for more interesting stuffs.
Conclusion
Hope you’ve found these useful. You might not have to use all of these, but some are definitely recommended. Thanks for reading. Please share.
221 comments
Hi BMO,
Many thanks for your reply. I know that Kali 1.x is done and dusted and wont be updated any longer, however I did find this on the Kali website which still allows certain updates to Kali1.x but it wont be maintained or updated any further.
https://www.kali.org/news/kali-moto-eol/
“Kali Moto Repository Purge
We’ve given Kali Moto (1.0) a good two months of grace time and will be purging the unsupported 1.0 distribution files from our repositories in the next few days. If you’re still using Kali 1.0 then it’s definitely time to either upgrade or update.
cat << EOF > /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.kali.org/kali sana main non-free contrib
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security/ sana/updates main contrib non-free
EOF
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade # get a coffee, or 10.
reboot
If for some reason you can’t upgrade, we’ve set aside an archive mirror of Kali 1.0, which can be set as follows:
cat << EOF > /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://old.kali.org/kali moto main non-free contrib
EOF
Please note, this repository will not be maintained or updated.”
Hope this is of some use after a fresh install of Kali1.x
Cheers
Doug
What is the fuck of > Kali Sana
Why is it so complicated now with kali sana :( ?
Do you know how to hack / android phone without Wi Fi or backdoor.apk using Kali Linux ?
-> social engineering toolkit
-> what is target phone connected website & ip address
:)
so helpful. the noble work of a gifted teacher. thank you this.
when installing kali 2.0 , the network autoconfiguration fails .after installation , there is no option for wifi. admin please help
also check this article
http://buffercode.in/important-things-to-do-after-installing-kali-linux/
My kali linux 2.0 freezes. Nothing works after a few minutes of boot. Please give some useful advice…
When i wanted to add repository it showed me syntax error on the second line of code pointing to $ symbol. Is it okay if i add the code, not replace it? Sorry for english though.
Hey I have a problem on Kali device. Only one Wi-Fi network whenever I try to connect. I’m unable to search for another. Whenever I search only one Wi-Fi network shows up. Please help me guys.
I used this video to update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w8CaQkjCvE
At the end of the document in the link below, it reads:
John Sheeks
Cyber Engineer
US Army Cyber Protection Brigade
http://www.academia.edu/8048908/20_things_to_do_after_installing_Kali_Linux
Can you believe this guy copy-pasted your article and uploaded it as if he had written it? How ridiculous is that? US Army Cyber Protection Brigade… so ridiculous, it pisses me off. You should contact Academia.edu at:
Copyright Agent
c/o Academia.edu
251 Kearny Street, #520
San Francisco, CA 94108
email: [email protected]
phone: +1 (650) 271-9312
fax: +1 (415) 520-6926
So you didn’t know? This website is run by a cyber engineer who works for the US Army.
apt-get install alsa-utils -y
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/dl.google.com_linux_chrome_deb_dists_stable_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
E: Unable to locate package alsa-utils
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realize such targeted approximately my problem.
You’re amazing! Thanks!
root@kali:~# apt-get install gdebi
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package gdebi is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package ‘gdebi’ has no installation candidate
Respected Friends,
I have install kali linux on my laptop.After installing the kali i update and upgarde it but my laptop dont play the sound i mean when i install th sound it says alpa-base not install what to do no idea?
Can I use my GPU NIVIDA graphics in virtualbox kali also ?
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can you please help sqlmap is not working on my kali linux 2016.1
Nice Blog. Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing with us.
Thank you so much boss.