Kali Linux has just been released. ISO and VMWare images for Kali, a Linux distribution from the developers of BackTrack Linux, just hit a download mirror near you.

BackTrack was/is a specialty distribution for security professionals and penetration testers. Before being re-branded, retooled and relaunched as Kali Linux, the last “stable” edition of BackTrack was BackTrack 5 R3. The “R” is for Revolution, that version’s code name.

With Kali, the distribution’s developers made the switch from an Ubuntu base to a Debian base. So, Kali is a Debian-based distribution for security gurus or those aspiring to be. Released installation images use the GNOME 3 (GNOME Shell 3.4.2) desktop environment, though there are instructions for rolling your own using the any desktop environment that you prefer.

Here are just a few screen shots from a live installation of Kali Linux in a virtual environment. This one is the boot menu.
Kali Linux GRUB Boot menu

Here’s the default desktop.
Kali Desktop

This one shows installed top 10 security applications.
Kali Desktop top  10 security pentesting apps

And this one shows installed hardware hacking tools.
Kali Linux hardware hacking Android apps

This shows categories of installed forensic applications.
Kali Linux forensics security apps

You may read more on what Kali Linux brings to the table here and download ISO or VMWare images from here.