Backtrack5 Install Notes 2011-05-14
backtrack linux
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A blog post, a Backtrack 5 review . . . Awesomeness. BT5 was released via torrent only on the 10th, and I managed to download it earlier this week. I was finally able to install it last night. Here are my thoughts and notes I made while using BT5 for the very brief bit of time that I have had.

Incidental thoughts

This are small things I found while installingusing Backtrack 5 and ways that I think it can be improved. These are just incidental things that could be fixed, but don’t have to be.

  • The taskbar does not show a battery monitor by default. It would be nice, although you can easily enable it by changing a setting in the system tray preferences.
  • Taskbar is like 60% the width of the screen and slid to the left. I’m not sure what the reason for this is, it would be nice for it to be centered, or full screen width.
  • Backtrack 5 uses GRUB2, but does not have a decent theme. It might be nice for the creators to BURG instead.
  • It would be nice to have an option in the installer to adjust mobo time in the installer. Backtrack 5 is using my motherboard time, which is set to actual time instead of GMT. There is probably something I need to change but I haven’t taken the time to find it yet.

Larger complaints

These are items that I would consider bugs.

  • I really wish the developers would have used a newer version of ubuntu. I know that 10.04 is in long term support, but I still have a few qualms.
  • They really need to include some shutdown options.
  • When the installer was finished, it said that “Ubuntu” had finished installing.
  • When booting, it shows “Ubuntu 10.04” briefly.
  • After starting KDE, KDE mentions something about an ensoniq audio device not being found.

Happiness

  • Backtrack 5 properly detects and uses the display driver for my netbook, something BT4 R2 did not do. Awesomeness
  • I saw that some updates had already been released for Backtrack 5. I know that the point of switching to an Ubuntu base with Backtrack was to enable a better update system. I don’t think that it was really used however in Backtrack4 like it should have been. These updates were nice to see and I really really hope the trend continues.
  • I’m glad to see that the installer did not mess up my boot MBR like Backtrack 4 R2 did.
  • Over all, I also think that Backtrack 5’s partition layout tool is clearer, which is very nice.

I’ll be playing with Backtrack 5 more over the next month and a half. I’ll be discussing what I find on the Techie Trio podcast. By the way, we released a new episode so you really should check it out.