EH-Net

ok im looking into getting a new laptop or netbook to run backtrack on.
i have a budget of 350$  looking for one with the  Atheros Chipset

ive seen this one at target  its an acer but im not sure about it

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AO722-0473-11-6-Inch-Netbook-Espresso/dp/B005J2E2US/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326948619&sr=8-1

its 329 at target  im not sure if it has the Atheros chipset or not
 any suggestions would be helpful 

should i need a cd rom  there is a toshiba  at wally world for the same price.   its got one more gig and a bigger hd  but its also a 15 inch system

I've got the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Atom 1.6GHz NetBook)

It comes with an Atheros Chipset wireless card and everything works great out of the box :)

As long as you won't need to do any password cracking you should be fine with it.

to be honest im not sure if ill ever password crack or not.   im also lookin now at  an asus 15 inch   that isnt much more.

so theXero  is yours  not strong enough  the cpu not strong enough to do password cracking or what??

Don't get me wrong, but it's a great netbook, and works perfectly but it's not designed to high performance so the password cracking can be a little slow but still achievable.

i see hteo ne you advertise has 3 usb ports. but amazon said somehting bout bluetooh   

doesi t have bluetooth?

There are two different models of the 1005HA, one with at 1.6GHz and one at 1.8GHz which also includes bluetooth.

I got the 1.6 as I didn't need/want bluetooth, and yes they both have 3 USB ports.

Go to ebay and buy an used
Dell Latitude or
Thinkpad or
HP Elite

plus an ALFA card and you are good to go.
Unless you want to be stealthy (and in this case a notebook is not the best solution) I don't see any reason to buy a netbook.

My opinion.

alucian   what would i need to be stealthy   you say?     not a netbook  ?   

i was looking at best buy tonight and found two asus laptops.   they got the same cpu  intel i3  and 4 gigs of ram    one has  500 gig and 3 usb ports.
the other has 320 gig and 2 usb ports.   

got a 15.6 inch screen both have the Atheros chipset    im not sure which one heh   

i liek the mouse on the one that has two usb ports  and its a lilttle cheaper. 

I would not recommend a netbook because it is too small and not powerful enough. If you want portability buy a 12 - 14" and if you want to do more than wireless cracking buy one 15 - 17" with a resolution of minimum 1600x900.
I recommend a good resolution, because you'll want to have more windows open in the same time (example: 2 shells and a browser, or a browser and burp...).

Also, don't put too much in a laptop unless you are rich.

For example, I just bought an used laptop, Dell Precision, core 2 duo, 4GB RAM, 17", SSD and I will use it for normal browsing and I have 2 OS windows and Backtrack.
Next week I will buy a server, dual CPU XEON, 6GB RAM, 2HDD and I will put my VMs, I will use it also as an web server, as a test machine...

The total price - 650$

If you buy a good laptop 17", it will cost you more than 1000$, without any return on investment. Worst, in one year it's value will be 700$ max.

I am giving you these advices because I saw that you are on a budget. Otherwise... buy the most expensive MAC, put a Linux as a dual boot and .... you'll do the same work as I do :)

PS I am wondering if in few years I will have the same judgement  ::)

the two asus intel i3 laptops im looking at both 15.6 inch  4 gigs of ram. one has 500gig hd and 3 usb ports  is 449$. the other one has 4 gigs 2 usb ports and 320 gig hd. and is 399 thease are at best buy where i have a card.
im trying to decide which one to get  really   the one i like only has two usb ports. i like how respnsive the mouse  is and such  and it seems to have a better picture than the other.  but  ive got a blue tooth adatper a gps adatper and my alfa  wirless adatper to get better signals.   

still trying to decide here heh

At least Penetration tester should have a good performance Computer/Laptop. If you are going to buy low performance laptop then in future you will be having some problem(It happened for me)...

Some Problem if get a low performance laptop:

1. You need low budget for buying a Low performance laptop. So Screen may be lower than 14" and after some month you may loss your eye power ''' heh.
2. What if you are going to crack a hash or a list of hash? Your laptop will be too slow and you will be unable to do others work at a time.
3. multiple tasking will be boring.

In my opinion if you budget problem then wait for some time then go for "good".     

intel i3 and 4 gigs of ram should be fine correct   plus it can be upgraded to 8 gigs of ram.   

I'd give it the 8 GB soon, in the event you want to load up VM's, but that should get you started, if that's what your budget affords.

im thinking about dual booting with the sytem.    ive got other older systems i can test on.    i guess  some poeple use VMs  to test on ?   or load backtrack in it?

Get a decent CPU that also supports hardware virtualization like AMD-V / Pacifica, Intel VT-x / Vanderpool and / or IOMMU. Why? Because if you're going to run Virtual Machines, why not let your CPU help you  ;D

You'll want VM's, IMHO.  As MaXe says, if money affords, the CPU's that support Hypervisors are best.  But if you're tight on funds, get the best you can for the buck.  Don't skimp, if you can help it.

the laptop i bought   is an asus  k53e-bbr11   500gig hd  3 usb ports 4 gigs of ram. can upgrade to 8 gigs   its 15.6 screen   atheros chipset.  i thinki ll be happy  with the laptop   

thinking now on going ahead and installing bt5 r1 and dual booting.   and then going from there

cd82, nice I'm a little jealous. I want a new laptop, but I'm saving up more money. The one I have my eye on is really designed to be a gaming machine. I figure I can run what I really want to with that beast.

As for the netbook. I bought an eeepc one last year, I hate it. It's running bt4r2.

The screen is too small for any real work.
The keyboard sucks for typing on.
forget trying to run jtr on it.

It's a nice little toy, but not a good quick little hacking box like I hoped. really it spends most of it's time turned off with books and stuff stacked on top of it, and I only tend to get it out when I need to update my phone (triple boot between windows 7, ubuntu and bt4r2). I've used it for war driving a few times with my Alfa plugged and gps receiver plugged in to it. but beyond that not really as great as I thought it would be.

thanks for the  complament   

so far i like im still setting stuff up  right now.
just to play around for now ive got bt5r1 installed in a vm.
reading couple of ebooks ive got  over some basics.

the laptop seems to run well  no  issues yet  so i think ill be happy with it. 

yall keep an eye out soon   ill prob be posting in other secctions  and this one aswell.

i still need to  dual boot btr5 an windows 7 i think

Just remember to lock down your BT sustenance. wither it's virtual or a direct install. Some simple things like disabling root log in from anything other then the console. Change the password. Set up a regular user account and go to root if and when you need to. Change the name of the box.

A friend and I were talking on twitter the week before classes started about how we were installing bt5, a friend that is the network admin at another school said he loved finding students running bt on the network. Which lead to a third friend jumping in and sharing her experience of that happening when she was new to BT.