These extra security measures are nice, but may be frustrating for a novice that wants their system to “just work.” It also disables auto mounting by default. This creates a smaller RAM footprint but also helps keep the system hidden if you’re on a target network. Parrot makes a point of “staying quiet” by disabling network services by default.

Parrot also maintains their own repos full of penetration testing and privacy tools. Parrot inherits a lot of Debian’s traits, like using the APT package manager, from which it can install a staggering number of packages that are available in Debian’s repos. First impressions of Parrot make it clear that it’s more of a privacy-focused distro than a hacking one. While there’s definitely some functional overlap, the two distributions have a lot of differences. When people think of penetration testing distributions, usually Kali Linux is the first one that comes to mind. For other most popular Linux distributions, please visit our dedicated Linux download page.

Parrot OS is a Linux distribution with a heavy focus on user privacy and penetration testing.

Parrot os raspberry pi