ROUNDUP Hacker distros
How does it look and feel in use?
L et’s get something out of the way from the beginning – some of these desktops adopt a ‘hacker’ aesthetic. There’s nothing wrong with this in itself, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of normal functionality. There’s even something to be said for the desktops that don’t bother with a hacker look because it means that they are easier to use unobtrusively. We’re not going to mark up or down either way. Just bear in mind that some of these desktops make it look as though you’re hacking something.
These distributions are designed to be occasional or secondary use systems rather than daily drivers, so we prefer to see a standard desktop and window layout to something that has to be learnt from scratch or that might be confusing when first encountering it. They aren’t daily drivers, but we expect these desktops to offer all of the usual facilities, such as a full file manager and a searchable application launcher that pops up when we press the Super key.
Kali Linux 9/10
Gnome and KDE are options, but Xfce is the default Kali desktop. This has a dark theme and some dark, shiny graphics on the backdrop. So, it evokes a hackerish mood without being a total giveaway that you’re doing some hacking. The taskbar is at the top, meaning the searchable application launcher is a pull-down one.
We like the items placed on the taskbar as they include a switcher between four virtual desktops and, most importantly, some monitor graphs for CPU usage. We like that, but it’s a shame that network usage monitoring isn’t also set up. It can be added, though, as with any Xfce desktop. The drop-down list of useful folders is another sensible addition.
The terminal console has a customised layout with good use of colour.
Overall, the Kali desktop is a sleeklooking dark setup with lots of useful features rather than being dedicated to hacker visual bling.
Parrot OS 8/10
When booting, you’re treated to an animation with a glitchy effect, reinforcing the hacker aesthetic, but the desktop uses an attractive dark, flat, clear theme rather than an obviously hackerish one.
Parrot Security uses the MATE desktop environment, a continuation of Gnome 2. There are two app launchers, a pull-down menu-type set of launchers (Application, Places and System) at the top and a more typical, searchable launcher at the bottom that pops up when you press the Super key. It has CPU, memory and network monitors in the top taskbar.
The window control icons – red, green and yellow blobs – have a slightly nonstandard placement. Having an icon on the bottom bar to toggle automatic sleep mode is a nice touch.
The terminal shell is customised and uses a hackerish green font and places the username and current directory above the entry line, a useful layout.
