[SOLVED] Are old computers good for hacking when they use Linux?

[krelidas_34]

NOTE: I don't like hacking. If I am going to hack, it's for ethical purposes. I am a Computer Science major, so educating myself on computers is IMPORTANT!!!

I have an older computer (besides my gaming laptop which I'm typing on) that is about 7- 8 years old. It's a 2014 Samsung Ativ with 1.60GHz Haswell Core i5 with 4 cores (can go up to 2.30GHz), 8GB of RAM, 120GB of SSD, 1TB of HDD. If I install Kali Linux or other Linux distro that is designed for hacking, will it work ? My Ativ has enough resources to run Linux, but I doubt the hardware is up-to-date for hacking. I might need more recent hardware for decent hacking, right?

PS: Sorry for this idiotic question. 🙁 I don't know much about hacking.

 

[USAFRet]

You have the hardware, Linux is free to install.
Did you.....hmm......just try it?

 

[krelidas_34]

You have the hardware, Linux is free to install.
Did you.....hmm......just try it?

I'll try. Sick of using Linux on a virtual machine... My point is, is my old computer capable of hacking?

 

[USAFRet]

I'll try. Sick of using Linux on a virtual machine... My point is, is my old computer capable of hacking?

Depends...what is your definition of "hacking"?

 

[krelidas_34]

Depends...what is your definition of "hacking"?

I dunno, ethical ones, I guess. Detecting vulnerabilities within a system...

I might take classes on hacking sometime later.

 

[Math Geek]

yes it will work fine. it is not power that is used for most hacking. rather hacking is the art of finding an exploitable vulnerability into a system and then taking advantage of said vulnerability. kali linux simply puts together a bunch of utilities that can be used to find and then attack a vulnerable pc/network.

we use many old laptops that were donated to the school with kali linux so the Cyber majors can practice playing with it. won't be any issues with the laptop being powerful enough so long as i can boot up and run linux, it's almost all command line so needs little gpu or cpu power

have fun learning. and if you stay with the major i do suggest eventually working on the Ethical Hacker cert. getting that goes a VERY long way with getting good work if you wish to be in the world of pen testing and other such areas.

 

[Grobe]

Well - here goes my personal and locally version of how the question is - or could be - understood.

In my language, the term "hacking" is sounding just like the word "hekking". The pronunciation is exact the same as in English, but it does describe a bird nesting on it's bird's nest with eggs on it (i.e can only happens in certain times at the year).

I have seen many colonies of sea gull nesting on rooftops in cities because it gives more safety against larger predator birds.

However - I'd not recommend setting up old laptops for this purpose as the plastic contents and other materials can spill out in the local environment.

On topic

I'm not fully sure I understand your question. I assume you're interesting to know whether that particular Linux distro support your hardware. It probably does. I just got hand in a 10yrs old laptop, and I know for sure it runs Fedora 35 just fine. Probably true for most other distros as well, but haven't tested it.
That is why I think it is more likely than not, your distro of choice will run on that particular computer.