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Hacking_and_Penetration_Testing_with_Low_Power_Devices

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36 CHAPTER 3 Installing a base operating system<br />

Table 3.3 Gentoo Linux<br />

Performance<br />

Package manager<br />

Desktop application<br />

repository support<br />

<strong>Hacking</strong> application<br />

repository support<br />

Community support<br />

Configuration<br />

Comments<br />

Excellent—everything is custom compiled<br />

Portage<br />

Good—better on desktop version<br />

Good—better on desktop version<br />

Good<br />

Somewhat different from other popular distributions but<br />

fairly easy<br />

By default, everything is built from source, which can yield<br />

excellent performance, but package installation tends to be<br />

time-consuming<br />

the many packages that comprise a full Gentoo system. If a package is in the repositories,<br />

it is easily built using Portage by issuing the comm<strong>and</strong> emerge . Things get a bit more interesting if a package is not available from the Gentoo<br />

repositories.<br />

The process for installing Gentoo on a Beagle is different from the desktop installation.<br />

For starters, you need a desktop Gentoo system <strong>with</strong> a microSD reader before<br />

you can install Gentoo on a Beagle. The desktop Gentoo computer is used to create a<br />

microSD card <strong>with</strong> Gentoo on it for the Beagle. Details of the installation process can<br />

be found at http://dev.gentoo.org/armin76/arm/beagleboneblack/install.xml. As<br />

<strong>with</strong> the desktop edition, installing Gentoo is a bit more involved than most other<br />

Linux variants.<br />

First, required building tools must be emerged. Second, a cross compiler must be<br />

built. Third, a copy of the U-boot bootloader (complete <strong>with</strong> patches) must be downloaded<br />

<strong>and</strong> built. Fourth, a kernel must be downloaded (including firmware), configured,<br />

<strong>and</strong> built. Fifth, the microSD card must be formatted. Thankfully, a script is<br />

provided for this task. Sixth, a basic root filesystem must be downloaded <strong>and</strong> transferred<br />

to the microSD card. Seventh, a Portage snapshot must be downloaded <strong>and</strong><br />

copied to the root filesystem on the microSD card. Eighth, a number of items (root<br />

password, networking, filesystems, hostname, system services, etc.) must be configured.<br />

Ninth, the kernel <strong>and</strong> U-boot must be transferred to the microSD card. Finally,<br />

the Beagle can be booted from the microSD media <strong>and</strong> further packages may be<br />

emerged.<br />

Building a Gentoo system can take several days. The reward for this extra effort is<br />

a finely tuned system. You might also be entitled to some bragging rights among the<br />

local techie population. Most common desktop applications can be found in the Gentoo<br />

repositories. Other distributions provide better support for penetration testing<br />

applications, however. Building applications can be a time-consuming process.<br />

For these reasons, Gentoo might not end up as our first chose as a base for our penetration<br />

testing Linux distribution.

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