On the low end, you can set up Kali Linux as a basic Secure Shell (SSH) server with no desktop, using as little as 128 MB of RAM (512 MB recommended) and 2 GB of disk space.

The installation requirements for Kali Linux will vary depending on what you would like to install and your setup.

We will explain other possible scenarios throughout the guide. In our example, we will be installing Kali Linux in a fresh guest VM, without any existing operating systems pre-installed. Our i386 images, by default use a PAE kernel, so you can run them on systems with over 4 GB of RAM. You should be able to use Kali Linux on newer hardware with UEFI and older systems with BIOS. The hardware requirements are minimal as listed in the section below, although better hardware will naturally provide better performance.

Where possible, we would recommend using the amd64 images. Kali Linux is supported on amd64 (x86_64/64-bit) and i386 (x86/32-bit) platforms. During the setup process you can initiate an LVM encrypted install on either Hard Disk or USB drives.įirst, you’ll need compatible computer hardware. At times, you may have sensitive data you would prefer to encrypt using Full Disk Encryption (FDE). This guide will cover the basic install (which can be done on bare metal or guest VM), with the option of encrypting the partition. Installing Kali Linux (single boot) on your computer is an easy process.

Install kali linux on windows 10