Kali Linux is an open source project that is maintained and funded by Offensive Security, a provider of world-class information security training and penetration testing services. In addition to Kali Linux, Offensive Security also maintains the Exploit Database and the free online course, Metasploit Unleashed.

The Bastille Hardening program "locks down" an operating system, proactively configuring the system for increased security and decreasing its susceptibility to compromise. Bastille can also assess a system's current state of hardening, granularly reporting on each of the security settings with which it works.

Bastille currently supports the Red Hat (Fedora Core, Enterprise, and Numbered/Classic), SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, and Mandrake distributions, along with HP-UX. It also supports Mac OS X. Bastille's focuses on letting the system's user/administrator choose exactly how to harden the operating system. In its default hardening mode, it interactively asks the user questions, explains the topics of those questions, and builds a policy based on the user's answers. It then applies the policy to the system. In its assessment mode, it builds a report intended to teach the user about available security settings as well as inform the user as to which settings have been tightened.

Whonix is an anonymous general purpose operating system based on Virtual Box, Ubuntu GNU/Linux and Tor. By Whonix design, IP and DNS leaks are impossible. Not even malware with root rights can find out the user's real IP/location.

Whonix consists of two machines, which are connected through an isolated network. One machine acts as the client or Whonix-Workstation, the other as a proxy or Whonix-Gateway, which will route all of the Whonix-Workstation's traffic through Tor. This setup can be implemented either through virtualization and/or Physical Isolation.

Sakis3G is a tweaked shell script which is supposed to work out-of-the-box for establishing a 3G connection with any combination of modem or operator. It automagically setups your USB or Bluetooth™ modem, and may even detect operator settings. You should try it when anything else fails!

If you are lucky enough, you may be connected 30 seconds after downloading script.

Linux system administrators often receive complaints about the performance of their systems.

It can be rather difficult to track down these problems and to find why, when, and how often they happen. Being able to zoom in on the processes that are responsible, and to see what has happened in the past, is very valuable.

The atop utility was written with just these things in mind.

Revisor enables you to customize and compose your own Fedora based installation and live media. It does so by presenting you a GUI with all options you can click your way through, a command-line interface and extended configuration files for more advanced users. Features that Revisor has vary from customizing the packages available during the installation and/or installed on the live media, to fully customizing the desktop environment for the live media. Check out Screenshots!

Yesterday, Ubuntu announced Ubuntu for Android. This new product basically allows you to run the entire Ubuntu Linux distribution on your Android smartphone connected to an external display and keyboard and mouse.

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When your Android smartphone is docked and connected to input devices and a screen, the smartphone will run the Unity interface using the peripherals, fully integrating with Android itself. Ubuntu will tap into the phone's address book, email, music and SMS applications, even going so far as to sending and receiving calls. Browser sessions are shared between the two environments as well, and you can run Android applications in the Unity interface. Heck, even your launcher works in Ubuntu.

Funny, I was thinking just the other day that if I could connect a keyboard and a screen to my phone, maybe I wouldn't need a laptop at all.

ArchBang is a simple GNU/Linux distribution which provides you with a lightweight Arch Linux system combined with the Openbox Window Manager. Suitable for both desktop and portable systems – It is fast, stable, and always up to date.

You can customise your install to suit your needs, and draw on the vast resources & knowledge of the Arch Linux community. The download page has links to both 32 & 64 bit versions, bootable as a live CD / USB – allowing you to easily test it out before doing a full install.

▁▂▃▅▂▇ in your shell.

Having become fed up with dealing with rpmbuild, spec files, debian control files, dh_make, debuild, and the whole lot, I automated my way back to sanity.

The result is a tool I call "fpm" which aims to help you make and mangle packages however you choose, all (ideally) without having to care about the internals of your particular native package format.

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With FPM, you can specify dependencies, architecture, maintainer, etc. All from a simple command line, and never forcing you to learn the pain and suffering that can come with rpm spec files or debian package building.