The distro includes the Xfce 4.12 and KDE 4.14.3 desktops

Aug 8, 2016 15:22 GMT  ·  By

After more than a year of silence, the Wifislax development team is very happy to announce the release and immediate availability for download of the Wifislax 4.12 GNU/Linux distribution.

Based on the recently debuted Slackware 14.2 operating system and shipping with two of the most popular desktop environments, namely the lightweight Xfce 4.12 and the modern KDE 4.14.3, WifiSlax 4.12 maintains its philosophy of using two kernels, one that's best to use on 486 (32-bit) hardware, and another one for modern, SMP-enabled machines.

Wifislax 4.12 is now one of the best GNU/Linux distributions to come with an arsenal of the most used tools for network auditing operations. As expected, it's a 32-bit only operating system shipping with Mozilla Firefox as the default web browser, since Google no longer offers a 32-bit version of its popular Chrome browser.

Numerous of the core components have also been updated in this release, and among the most important ones, we can mention Python 3, Qt 5.6.1, NetworkManager 1.2, and a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 4.4 branch (version 4.4.16 at the time of writing this article).

Next Wifislax release will be available only for 64-bit systems

Also new in Wifislax 4.12 is a set of handy scripts that let you update existing packages in the system or add new ones, depending on your needs. For example, with a single mouse click, you'll be able to add the latest version of the powerful and complex LibreOffice office suite, or use the Apache OpenOffice alternative.

The choice is yours, and ou can add any graphical application or command-line program that's also available upstream, in the Slackware 14.2 repositories. Additionally, Wifislax lets you install any other third-party software that's not available in the repos, just by downloading and compiling its sources.

Another interesting change in Wifislax 4.12 is that support for the Hashcat CPU-based password recovery tool has been halted because AMD hasn't updated its Catalyst graphics driver for GNU/Linux systems for a long time now, and Wifislax 4.12 ships with the latest X.Org Server 1.18 display driver.

In other, good news, the Wifislax team reports that Wifislax 4.12 will be the last version to offer 32-bit support. The next major release will be available only for modern, 64-bit computers, as well as full UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) support, which was not available in the 32-bit version, of course. Download Wifislax 4.12 right now via our website.