Customizing Kali Linux | Offensive Security

One of the designers on the Kali Linux team shares his top tips and tools to customize Kali Linux. Dig in under the hood with Daniel Ruiz de ...In this detailed .

CUSTOMIZING KALI LINUX

By Daniel Ruiz de Alegría, art designer on the Kali Linux project

We added Xfce as the new default desktop environment in Kali Linux for the 2019.4. One of the key benefits of Xfce, in terms of customization, is that it is a fully modular desktop. You can use all kinds of programs to change its behavior and appearance.

While we think Kali looks impressive out of the box, we know users love to customize. In this post, I’ll show you some tricks to customize the new Xfce desktop and help you make your computer stand out.

GENERAL TIPS AND TRICKS

We’ll start by providing a few general tips, then demonstrate some examples.

Changing the theme to dark/light

Changing Kali’s look isn’t overly complicated, but if you are switching the dark/light theme or want to install a new one, you need to know which settings will make the whole desktop look uniform. Those are the following:

Appearance theme
Icon theme
Window Manager theme
Terminal color scheme
Text editor color scheme

GENERAL SCRIPT

With these scripts you can quickly switch between Kali’s light/dark themes. The only thing you need to change manually is qterminal’s color scheme.

LIGHT THEME

xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/IconThemeName -s Flat-Remix-Blue-Light

xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/ThemeName -s Kali-Light

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/theme -s Kali-Light

gsettings set org.xfce.mousepad.preferences.view color-scheme Kali-Light

DARK THEME

xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/IconThemeName -s Flat-Remix-Blue-Dark

xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/ThemeName -s Kali-Dark

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/theme -s Kali-Dark

gsettings set org.xfce.mousepad.preferences.view color-scheme Kali-Dark

Transparent panel

Xfce-panel settings allows you to modify each panel configuration separately (right-click over the panel → Panel → Panel preferences).

Once you’ve selected the one you want to modify, go to the Appearance tab, change the Background→Style setting to Solid color and use the color selector that will appear below. In case you want to adjust its opacity or make it completely transparent, move the slider located under the color box.

If you also want to remove the panel’s shadow, open the Window Manager Tweaks application, and, inside the Compositor section, disable the Show shadows under dock windows check-box. Alternatively, you can use the following command:

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/show_dock_shadow -s false

Change the menu icon

Right-click over the menu icon → Properties

The icon selector will show you all the icons already installed on your computer, but, if you want, you can use a custom image as well. Here are the ones I’ve used:

Improve the taskbar with Plank

Plank is a customizable dock.

Plank is meant to be the simplest dock on the planet. The goal is to provide just what a dock needs and absolutely nothing more.

You can install plank via apt:

sudo apt install plank

The only tricky part is that you need to configure it to launch on login. To do so, open the Session and Startup application and add Plank to the autostart list.

As with Xfce-panel, you will need to disable dock shadows. Otherwise, it will draw a shadow line in the middle of your desktop.

Window Manager Tweaks → Compositor → disable Show shadows under dock windows

Tip: If you want to open Plank settings, press Ctrl + Right-click over it. You can change the theme and make it completely transparent.

Numerical workspace switcher

In many cases, the numerical workspace switcher looks better than the miniature view. To configure it, disable the Show miniature view inside the widget’s settings (right-click it → Preferences). Then, open the workspace settings and manually replace their names with numbers.

Tip: If you want to increase the button dimension, add some spaces to each side of the workspace name. You don’t need to do it with all of them, only with one, and the rest will use the same size.

Window animations using Compton

Xfce uses Xfwm4 as the default display compositor, which fulfills its function, still being lightweight enough. But, it lacks all the animations of the modern desktops, which makes it look outdated. Hopefully, as I mentioned before, Xfce is a modular desktop, thus you can replace it with a different display compositor, such as Compton.

Installation:

sudo apt -y install compton

It is crucial to disable Xfwm compositing before launching Compton (inside Window Manager Tweaks → Compositor), and you will need to add it to the autostart list as well. I also recommend disabling the Draw frame around selected window while cycling option. Alternatively, you can use the following command:

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s false

Restore Kali’s default appearance

If you want to undo all the visual changes that you’ve applied to your desktop, simply run:

rm -rf ~/.config/xfce4/ && sudo reboot

SOME CUSTOMIZATION EXAMPLES

Bear in mind all customizations are based using Kali’s default settings as the start point. Therefore, it may be easier to follow these customizations after restoring desktop defaults.

1.

Settings:

Theme: Kali-Dark
Wallpaper: kali-rings
Panel settings:

2.

Settings:

Theme: Kali-Light
Wallpaper: kali-small-logo
Font Family: Quicksand Medium Bold
Panel settings:

3.

Settings:

Theme: Kali-Dark
Wallpaper: kali-small-logo
Desktop Icons:
- Icons orientation: Bottom Right Vertical
Window Manager settings:
- Title alignment: Left
- Move window close/maximize/minimize buttons to the left side
  These settings allow you to save some vertical space, as the title-bar and the panel will be joined when the window is maximized.
Plank settings:
- Theme: Transparent
- Position: Left
- Alignment: Center
- Icon Size: 48
- Icon Zoom: Enabled
- Behaviour:
  - Hide Dock: Enabled – Intellihide
Panel settings:

4.

Settings:

Theme: Kali-Dark
Wallpaper: New wallpaper! included below
Plank settings:
- Theme: Transparent
- Position: Bottom
- Alignment: End
- Icon Size: 64
- Icon Zoom: Disabled
- Behaviour:
  - Hide Dock: Enabled – Intellihide
Panel settings:

WALLPAPER

You can also find more by doing either:

sudo apt install -y kali-community-wallpapers

sudo apt install -y kali-legacy-wallpapers

AWESOME TERMINAL GRAPHICAL TOOLS

I promise, I was only going to talk about desktop customizations. But after adding all the screenshots with the terminal windows, I needed to share the tools I was using.

To stylize the terminal a bit more, I like to hide the menu bar and increase the terminal’s transparency to 15%. You can find both settings inside the preferences window with right-click → Preferences, in the Appearance section.

There, you need to uncheck the Show the menu bar box and change the transparency values. For this, you will find two different values: the Application transparency will change the whole window opacity, and the Terminal transparency will only change the area of the terminal.

htop

This is an interactive process viewer and process manager.

sudo apt install -y htop

gotop

This terminal-based graphical activity monitor doesn’t appear in the screenshots, but many people asked me about it in other pictures I’ve posted, so I thought it would be great to add it.

sudo apt install -y golang

go get github.com/cjbassi/gotop

go run github.com/cjbassi/gotop

neofetch

This is the command line system information tool I use.

sudo apt install -y neofetch

lolcat

Get rainbows and unicorns! This tool commonly appears used together with neofetch, adding a stunning rainbow effect to its output.

sudo apt install -y lolcat

HOW HAVE YOU CUSTOMIZED KALI LINUX?

It’s time for you to go forth and customize! If you use any of the tips in this post, we’d love to see the results. Share a screenshot and tag us on

Tags: customize kali linux theme

article, We'll talk about some tricks to customize the new Xfce ... Kali Linux developers added Xfce as the new default desktop ..

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Parrot OS 4.7 Full-Screen Issue - TechZone World

Parrot OS 4.7 Full-Screen Issue

This is a quick easy fix. By default, it appears that Parrot OS 4.7 virtual appliance (.ova) doesn’t come with VirtualBox Guest Additions installed. Once you have booted up Parrot OS run this command to install the VirtualBox Guest Utilities. Once this is installed, you may reboot and everything should be fine.

1
2
3
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 👈 or 👉 sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-x11
$ reboot

VirtualBox Guest Additions

The VirtualBox Guest Additions package contains device and system drivers that optimize the operating system for better performance and usability.

Automatic Resizing (Full Screen)
Better Video Support
Shared Clipboard
Shared Folders
Drag and Drop
Seamless Mode (Mouse pointer integration)
Improved Performance
Time sychronization

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Things to do with a fresh ParrotOS 4.10 installation | TechZone world

Things to do with a fresh ParrotOS 4.10 installation

Now that you have installed Kali, it’s time to tweak and customize the operating system to your liking. Kali can be daunting at first as you may not have much experience with it. Fear not, the list below is just a few of the things you can install and set up to start exploring the world of penetration testing. Before long you will feel a whole new world opening up to you, let’s get started with some things to do with a fresh ParrotOS 4.10 installation.

1. Check for Updates & Upgrades

The most important thing to do is to check for updates and upgrade the system if available. The easiest way to do so would be through the terminal with a single line of code.

sudo apt update && apt full-upgrade -y

2. Install Graphics Drivers (NVIDIA)

If you have an Nvidia Graphics card you will want to install the official drivers from Nvidia as the default drivers that come installed are not as good. To install the graphics drivers first we must make sure that the operating system is fully upgraded and only then we may proceed to install the drivers we need. Enter the code below in your terminal.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y ocl-icd-libopencl1 nvidia-driver nvidia-cuda-toolkit

3. Install Media Codecs

Media codecs help you play videos and audios, most of them come install by its better to install all available codecs to avoid any potential headaches later on. Enter the code below in your terminal.

sudo apt install libdvdnav4 gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly libdvd-pkg -y

4. Install Kali Metapackages

The default Kali installation comes with a few pre-installed software packages to save space; however, that is not the complete list of what can be installed on your system. That’s where metapackages come in, it allows you to install a bundle of software that best suits what you will be doing with ParrotOS.

You can do a search for the available metapackages by using the following “apt” command;

sudo apt-get update && apt-cache search parrot-

Once you have decided which bundle you would like to install; I usually go with all of them, you may continue by using the following code below;

sudo apt-get install parrot-tools-full

Do note that it will take up a lot of space if you choose to install all the packages, so do be sure to have sufficient space on your hard drive.

5. Install Usefull Apps

If you are new to ParrotOS and need some recommendations as to which apps are amazing and you should install them. I have compiled a list of some of the apps you may want to install which I recommend are;

TorGhost

This app is an awesome script that routes your connection through the ‘tor’ network, useful if you would like to hide your IP address;

git clone https://github.com/susmithHCK/torghost.git cd torghost
sudo chmod +x build.sh ./build.sh

You can use the app by entering the following commands;

sudo torghost -s #to start Torghost
sudo torghost -r #to request a new node
sudo torghost -x #to stop Torghost
sudo torghost -h #to pull up the manual

sudo apt install hydra

6. Gnome Shell Extensions

f you are going to use the Gnome Desktop environment, you absolutely have to look into and use GNOME EXTENSIONS. As they will enhance your overall experience using ParrotOS or any other gnome based desktop. You can tweak and enhance the capabilities of your desktop environment easily and quickly.

Above are just some of the things to do with a fresh ParrotOS 4.10 installation you can try, naturally, there are plenty more you can do to customize your ParrotOS distribution to make it more to your liking.

Linux Must Install ParrotOS

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