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Kali Linux vs Linux Mint: What are the differences?
Key Differences between Kali Linux and Linux Mint
- Purpose: Kali Linux is primarily designed for penetration testing and ethical hacking purposes, providing a wide range of pre-installed security tools and utilities. On the other hand, Linux Mint is a user-friendly distribution focused on offering a smooth desktop experience for general users.
- Target Users: Kali Linux is aimed at security professionals, network administrators, and individuals involved in cybersecurity, who require advanced testing and analysis tools. Meanwhile, Linux Mint caters to a broader audience, including regular desktop users, students, and beginners in the Linux ecosystem.
- Interface: Kali Linux has a more minimalistic and command-line-oriented interface, emphasizing functionality over aesthetics. Conversely, Linux Mint offers a visually appealing desktop environment with a customizable user interface, providing a more traditional and intuitive experience.
- Preinstalled Software: Kali Linux comes with a vast array of pre-installed security tools and packages, enabling users to quickly perform various security assessments and penetration testing tasks. On the other hand, Linux Mint focuses more on essential applications, offering a more general-purpose set of software for everyday computing needs.
- Updates and Stability: Kali Linux follows a rolling release model, meaning it constantly receives updates with the latest software versions. This approach provides cutting-edge tools but may lead to occasional instability. In contrast, Linux Mint follows a fixed release model, offering a more stable and predictable system environment with less frequent updates.
- Community Support: Both Kali Linux and Linux Mint have active communities providing support and assistance. Kali Linux, being a specialized distribution, has a more dedicated community focused on security-related discussions, while Linux Mint has a broader user base, offering help for various troubleshooting and general Linux queries.
In summary, Kali Linux is a specialized distribution for security professionals, focusing on penetration testing and hacking tools, while Linux Mint provides a user-friendly desktop experience for a broader range of users with a more stable and traditional software selection.
I liked manjaro a lot, the huge support it has and the variety of tools it provides is just awesome. But due to its parent platform being Arch Linux it has bleeding-edge technology and that meaning, we get updated 'daily', and if we keep updating the system daily, due to the bugs in the recent updates the system sometimes used to crash, this made the OS really unstable. However, one can avoid such crashes using periodical and careful system/package updates. I now use LinuxMint which is based on Ubuntu, and this OS is completely stable with reliable(mostly tested) updates. And, since this OS is backed up by UBUNTU the concerns/questions one can encounter while using the OS can be easily rectified using the UBUNTU community, which is pretty good. Though this is backed up on UBUNTU it most certainly does NOT include the proprietary stuff of UBUNTU, which is on the bright side of the OS. That's it! Happy Computing.
Pros of Kali Linux
- Penetration testing tools are pre-installed8
- Has many penetration testing tools8
- Runs on both x86 and ARM platforms5
- Its just debian so it has better support3
- There's no restrictions1
Pros of Linux Mint
- Simple, Fast, Comfort and Easy to Use15
- Stable14
- Elegant12
- Good for beginners11
- Free to use10
- Out of the box3
- Reliable3
- Good software support1
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Cons of Kali Linux
- Wireless driver issues on some systems3
- Packages are too large in size as compare to alpine3
- Outdated versions of common packages3
- Root GUI setup is a potential security hole2
Cons of Linux Mint
- Easy to mess up with a few settings (like the panel)3
- Security breaches2
- Idiots can break it because it is open source1