Platform support and editions

Multiple editions for different scenarios and a variety of platforms.

Kali has a huge variety of install options, and these include images for ARM-based computers and pre-made virtual machine images for most of the popular virtualisers. It’s even possible to install a version of Kali on to an Android-powered device. There are also containerised versions for low-overhead access to the Kali tools. This is in addition to the expected x86 and AMD64 versions for a normal PC. The website has instructions for making your own custom edition.

BlackArch has three installation ISOs: Full, Slim and Netinstall. We went for Slim as the Full edition (22GB!) is only useful for installation without an internet connection. Netinstall installs a basic system, leaving it to you to add the optional tools manually. There are instructions to add BlackArch packages to standard ArchLinux but it doesn’t give quite the same distro as BlackArch.

This aspect of the website is confusing, but as far as we can see, Pentoo offers x86 and AMD64 versions in either beta or stable versions.

There is a donate option on the BackBox website but the online instructions inform you that you can set this to zero if you prefer. There is only a single edition, for X86-64 PCs.

Parrot OS also has a good variety of installation candidates to cater for platforms such as Docker containers, popular virtualisers and the Raspberry Pi. The Architect Edition comes with very little installed and includes a menu-based system for adding system components and different types of hacking tools.

Kali Linux has pretty much every angle covered when it comes to platform support. This includes hardware platforms, along with virtualisers and container formats.