Pentoo

Distribution for penetration testing, based on Gentoo (which compiles absolutely everything from scratch).

Everything SDR-related (gnuradio, etc) "just works"

Installing

links

pentoo isos

http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/pentoo/Pentoo_amd64_hardened/

gentoo wiki live usb guide

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/LiveUSB/Guide

Live USB

First, plug in your usb drive (I used a 16 gb usb drive).

Look for it using fdisk:

$ fdisk -l

$ fdisk -l /dev/sdb

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Now that the disk is unmounted, let's create a new FAT partition on it:

$ mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sdb1

Next step is to install the precompiled Linux system master boot record onto the jump drive. Install it, then make sure you have it (it may also be located at /usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin):

$ apt-get install syslinux

$ ls /usr/lib/SYSLINUX/mbr.bin

Use dd to write the image onto the jump drive:

$ dd if=/usr/lib/SYSLINUX/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb

Now mount the iso file:

$ mount -o loop,ro ~/Downloads/Pentoo_Linux_amd64_hardened_2015.0_RC5/pentoo-amd64-hardened-2015.0_RC5.iso /media/root/cdrom

$ mkdir /media/root/usb

$ mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/root/usb

now copy files from installation cd to live usb:

$  cp -r /media/root/cdrom/* /media/root/usb

The files need to be re-ordered, sicne we will be using syslinux as the bootloader, and not isolinux:

$ mv /media/root/usb/isolinux/* /media/root/usb

$ mv /media/root/usb/isolinux.cfg /media/root/usb/syslinux.cfg

$ rm -rf /media/root/usb/isolinux*

$ mv /media/root/usb/memtest86 /media/root/usb/memtest

Now the cd rom image can be unmounted. This is not the usb drive - not yet!

$ umount /media/root/cdrom

next, replace a slowusb setting to speed up startup:

$ sed -i -e "s:cdroot:cdroot slowusb:" -e "s:kernel memtest86:kernel memtest:" /media/root/usb/syslinux.cfg

Now you can unmount the usb drive:

$ umount /media/root/usb

Lastly, install syslinux on the USB drive device:

$ syslinux /dev/sdb1