Kali Linux vs Linux Mint

Overview

Linux Mint

Stacks288

Followers389

Votes77

Kali Linux

Stacks259

Followers381

Votes25

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.

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Advice on Linux Mint, Kali Linux

Gopi

Jun 21, 2020

Decided

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.

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Detailed Comparison

Linux Mint	Kali Linux
The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.	It is a Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. It contains several hundred tools which are geared towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering.
-	Advanced Penetration Testing Distribution; More than 600 penetration testing tools included; FHS compliant; Custom kernel, patched for injection
Statistics
Stacks 288	Stacks 259
Followers 389	Followers 381
Votes 77	Votes 25
Pros & Cons
Pros 16 Simple, Fast, Comfort and Easy to Use 15 Stable 13 Elegant 12 Good for beginners 11 Free to use Cons 3 Easy to mess up with a few settings (like the panel) 2 Security breaches 1 Idiots can break it because it is open source	Pros 8 Has many penetration testing tools 8 Penetration testing tools are pre-installed 5 Runs on both x86 and ARM platforms 3 Its just debian so it has better support 1 There's no restrictions Cons 3 Wireless driver issues on some systems 3 Packages are too large in size as compare to alpine 3 Outdated versions of common packages 2 Root GUI setup is a potential security hole
Integrations
No integrations available	VirtualBox MySQL Slack

What are some alternatives to Linux Mint, Kali Linux?

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

Debian

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

Arch Linux

A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

Fedora

Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.

CentOS

The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.

Linux

A clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

CoreOS

It is designed for security, consistency, and reliability. Instead of installing packages via yum or apt, it uses Linux containers to manage your services at a higher level of abstraction. A single service's code and all dependencies are packaged within a container that can be run on one or many machines.

Gentoo Linux

It is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need.

Alpine Linux

Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox.

Manjaro

It is an accessible, friendly, open-source Linux distribution and community. Based on Arch Linux, it provides all the benefits of cutting-edge software combined with a focus on getting started quickly, automated tools to require less manual intervention, and help readily available when needed.

Related Comparisons

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.

Kali Linux vs Linux Mint

Overview

Kali Linux vs Linux Mint: What are the differences?