Kali 2015-07-25

Fixing Kali to Work

Upgrades

First things first

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get -y dist-upgrade

Now add to aptitude sources as per Kali 2015-06-17 notes, and when you have added the new sources, run

$ apt-get update

Now you'll be able to install stuff like xfce4.

Map CapsLock to Control

I have to do this before anything else, otherwise I go nuts.

In Applications > System Tools > Preferences > System Preferences, open Keyboard. Click Layout Settings. Click Options.

On this screen, changed Alt/Win to "Left Alt swapped with Left Win" and changed Caps Lock to "Make caps lock additional Control".

XFCE

All the xfce package dependencies were taking forever to get out of the Kali repos. Dunno what's going on. Gave up on the third try.

Iceweasel

All browsers are obnoxious, Firefox most of all. The vimperator plugin makes it tolerable, although it has poor documentation (read: no documentation). Here's a link: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7723/

Annoyances:

• can't use control a to select all text - it just moves the cursor to the beginning of the line (e.g. search box)
• wildly inconsistent and unpredictable behaviors with alt/meta/control/shift and arrows
• no improvement for entering text in a field.
• Control A doesn't select all, but Alt A does?!?

Mouse Trackpad

Synaptics

The mouse trackpad can be modified with the xserver-xorg-inputs-synaptic package (as per https://wiki.debian.org/MacBookPro#Touchpad). Double finger scrolling is disabled by default but can be enabled by picking Applications > System Tools > Preferences > System Preferences, then Mouse, then edit the settings in the Trackpad tab.

I had synclient installed on my machine: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Synclient

What I'm trying to do: http://askubuntu.com/questions/250336/disable-mouse-movement-in-tap-zones-on-synaptics-trackpad

I believe the synaptics stuff is provided by the gpointing-device-settings package, which I already had.

In any case, you can test settings with synclient. When you're ready, commit them to Xorg in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf to pick them up at restart.

More on these idiotic clickpads: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Synclient

This is very discouraging: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=188324

Guess I'll have to resort to a physical hack to fix this god-awful apple keyboard.

Annoyances:

• when i have a second finger on (or even near) the trackpad, the trackpad won't accept any input at all.
• i use the trackpad with index finger while resting thumb on bottom of trackpad
• if apple hadn't designed such an idiotic trackpad, this wouldn't be an issue
• solution is to increase the very very tiny sliver of ignored space at the bottom of the trackpad

Mouse Generally

Annoyances:

• while working in termal or in firefox, Kali randomly gets a "scroll up" signal, every minute or so.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard movement in Linux sucks, mainly becuase the navigation keyboard shortcuts in Linux are so inconsistent between input types, programs, operating systems, etc.

I fixed the function keys to be permanently toggled by running the command:

echo 0 > /sys/module/hid_apple/parameters/fnmode

which allows you to use the function keys as function keys, without pressing a Fn key.

Previously, Alt + F1 was mapped to the absurdly boring applications menu, so I remapped it to open a terminal.

Using Function + Up and Function + Down for top/bottom, and Function + Left and Function + Right to go to beginning/end of line work fine.

Annoyances:

• alt forward and alt back in browser navigate forward and back. I lose a lot of work this way.
• option foward and option back don't work as expected.
• absolutely nothing works correctly in firefox with vimperator enabled.