I just download Backtrack 2 beta and I have to say Im very impressed how it has evolved from Whax and Slax, truth is Im still trying to figure out what wireless devices will work with it so that I can use the wireless tools, suck as packet injection and other stuff, like cracking wep to se if its really that easy. Im planning on using my friend laptop against my own secure network. My other question are ther any codes for this beta OS?
Remeber Whoppix 2.7.1 whenyou typed "knoppit toram" the os installe dto the ram and ran right of it, are there any similar codes with backtrack?

What do you know about Phlak? Does it work the same if not better on serucity networking caracking wise compares to backtrack?

A lot of the live cd distros support the toram option. As Backtrack is based on Slax it should support this option although it may well require more ram. I just had a search and I can't confirm that though. Boot it and see I guess.. They do have an active forum on the site so you could try asking there.

From what I know of Phlak it also includes a lot of forensic and discovery tools and might not be as comprehensive on the wireless side. The only big tool I see missing from this CD is nessus but they do give reasons why they chose not to include it.

Certainly for the purpose you describe you should have all you need software wise.

Thanks for the info.
Another thing what brings this subject afloat is the wireless devices backtrack supports?
It seems that linux works really well on laptops with their integrated wireless, I have a desktop and wish to use some of the cool wireless features, I have a WMP54GX wireless pci adapter and that chip I beleive uses an Airgo chipset I believe, are there any emulators for linux to utilize my wireless device? I know that there are programs such as WINE, I've also heard of i think its called ndswrapper??
Could you shine me some light on my troubled topic?
Sorry that Im asking a million questions, but I just need some expert advice.

Yea, tell me about it, total n00b

Unfortunately, Ndiswrapper is meant only to get unsupported cards into working in normal modes with the windows drivers and as such don't support the modes such as Master (acting as a wireless AP) or Monitor (passive packet sniffing), and essentially makes it useless for wireless security analysis.

Well-supported cards for this type of activity are the new-ish intel chips (2100, 2200, 2915, 3945, etc.), old-school Intercil Prism chips will let you do essentially anything you want, they're kinda hard to find nowadays though, RaLink also has a coupla chipsets that are well-supported, such as the rt2500, also Atheros has notoriously good support of Linux. Those have been that I've found in my travels of having the best support.

Well notified, are there any wireless pci adapters that will work with packet sniffing or master AP settings?

I know that D-Link and some netgear work relatively well with Linux, but isnt there a website where it tell all the brand names and model numbers that are supported by backtrack2?

This is a fairly comprehensive list, including listing known revision numbers that are good chip sets.

THANKS FOR THE LIST
NOw all I have to do is to learn networking commands for linux, which brings in mind for other questions, where can I find codes, language resources for conducting wireless tests and all?

Aircrack-ng, Wireshark, and Kismet are great tools to start with

Great, so can you tell me where I would find drivers for a WMP54g trying to get a v4.0 but I cannot tell without opening the box.
Another thing, how do you install drivers in linux?

I am trying to get a wireless pci adapter so that I can start using the tool right away.

cannot seem to find a ver 4.0 all I find is ver4.1, will that work?
What about the Linksys WMP54gs?
I just need to find the card that will give me no problems, Will the other versions work as well?
What do I need to do?

The card is supported by the 43xx kernel module. In the linux kernel, device drivers take the form of either built-in support or, more generally, kernel modules. According to the 43xx homepage, all of the WMP54g series should be supported, and the driver supports the needed modes (namely Monitor mode) for Kismet and Wireshark. Whatever distribution you choose, just make sure it either comes with the module by default (if you choose a liveCD) or it can be easily installed (if you are installing to a disk)

Thanks, what I was wondering is how can I Install backtrack 2 onto my hard drive? What are the linux codes so that It can do that?
Also, where would I find the drivers to my linksys adapter?
I really appreciate you all taking the time in helping my quest with linux, any thanks.

Backtrack, as a distro, is mainly meant for running as a liveCD in on an unknown machine to gather intelligence (it has the tools many use for network security already installed).

If you are going to go the route of actually installing the OS to a machine, it is better to use a distro that is meant to be installed to a machine and simply installed the desired tools after completing installation. Any Linux distro can become as powerful as Backtrack after installing a few tools, there's nothing inherently superior about it.

Pick a distro, then I would do a search online for something like "your_distro 43xx" and that should lead to a nice how-to (usually, with the newer, nicer distros it's usually as easy as using the graphical software installation program)

I agree with bmouring and would suggest Ubuntu 6.10 or Fedora Core 6 or both :-D

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/Get [...] entrelease

http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/6/x86_64/iso

http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/6/i386/iso

THE THING WITH bACKTRACK is that when I go to install my driver for my wireless d-link card, i does not want to install. So you are saying with the new distro like FC6 i would be able to install programs much easier?
well if it cuts off the headache, I am down for anything to try.
Its the "untar" way that really confuses me.

I appreciate the help and support.

Yes a very modern and fast updating distro like FC6 or Ubuntu is your best bet.

Install FC6, Ubuntu 6.10 or both download updates and you should be all set.

On FC6 to download updates:

[code:1:6710743d38]
yum -y update
[/code:1:6710743d38]

On Ubuntu check apt-get


The latest kernel on FC6 includes the bcm43xx driver.


The latest Ubuntu 6.10 may also include it -- I believe Ubuntu is using 2.6.17

GL :-D

Many thanks, you have made my journey to exploring Linux very worth while

Do I really need to get the 64 bit edition?
What are the benefits of the 64-bit?
I have an Opty170 so Im certain it is 64 bit ready

Since you have an Opteron 170 definitely get the x86_64 version!

AMD64s are 25-80% faster in 64bit mode depending on how optimized the code is.

Good stuff! :-D