BackTrack 5 is rocking my world as of late. I've been running the gnome 32bit version as my primary os on one of my laptops since release and I so far it has been fantastic out of the box.

That is until I wanted to easily connect to a PPTP VPN. While BackTrack5 includes Wicd -- the Wireless (and wired) Interface Connection Daemon I'm more familiar with Network Manager, which includes a VPN client. Two birds, one stone!

In this segment I setup Network Manager in BackTrack 5.

apt-get install network-manager-gnome

cp /etc/network/interfaces{,.backup}

echo ""auto lo"" > /etc/network/interfaces

echo ""iface lo inet loopback"" >> /etc/network/interfaces

service network-manager start

nm-applet&

reboot

If you want to run Ubuntu seamlessly inside a Windows box, perhaps you'll be interested in this tool called andLinux. AndLinux is a complete Ubuntu system that runs in Windows (all except 64-bit 7) and uses a program called coLinux as it's core. CoLinux is a port of the Linux kernel to Windows. It's kind of like running linux in a VM, except with coLinux, andLinux merges itself with Windows and the Linux kernel instead of running through an emulated PC. andLinux is for fun and development and it can run almost any Linux applications without having to do any modifications.

So, with andLinux you get a fully functional Linux system, with no desktop interface. It gives you a second panel or start menu where you can load Linux apps. The apps can be run simultaneously with Windows apps and you can cut and paste text between them.

AndLinux comes in a couple of different versions- KDE version (which is a full version) or XFCE (minimal). When you go through the andLinux installation on Windows, there are a few important steps to keep in mind. Choosing your start up type: I chose run andLinux automatically as a NT service because it is the most convenient choice. You don't have to do any kind of configurations if you choose this option. You'll be asked to create a username and password for andLinux login. For Windows file access, I chose COFS as it gives you easier configuration compared to Samba. Samba will, though, let you share files with special characters.

Also, if Windows starts freaking' because it's not Microsoft certified, just click continue anyway.

Once the installation has finished, just restart your computer and unblock any windows firewall settings that may occur from the installation. To start using andLinux, first run the NT console. This will open a command prompt that'll ask you for your username and password. You can then close that window and start using any of the programs and applications that are available in the boot menu. It's kind of like downloading all the Linux programs straight into Windows without using a Linux OS.

So I'm just going to try some of these programs out, and they all seem to work just fine. So andLinux looks to be a very handy way to use Linux applications indeed! If you like it, tell me so! feedback@hak5.org.

MTR isn't your father's Traceroute. It's the ultimate command line tool for finding out where those tasty little packets are getting lost. From bash issue mtr --report-wide --curses and your destination of choice.

mtr --report-wide --curses 8.8.8.8

MTR will bring up a curses terminal interface with a constantly updating report on hops and pings, complete with hostname, best and average latency, and percentage of packets lost at each link.

Thanks to Brian for sending this in and scoring some complimentary hak5 swag. Submit your 4-bits at hak5.org/nibble