Problem installing Kali Linux (mount installation media)

[Laxmantim]

I am trying to dual boot Kali Linux with windows 10 (already installed) on my acer predator helios 300 laptop. When I try and run the installer it gets stuck every time at the message "could not mount installation media" and something about the CD not being inserted in the drive even though I am booting off of a 128GB sandisk flash drive. I used rufus-3.8 to create the bootable USB and have tried multiple different configuration options when setting up the USB in rufus and they all fail in the same way (could not mount installation media). I have already cleared space on both the SSD and hard drive to make room for the new OS, 40GB on the SSD and 100GB on the hard drive. I have tried searching forums for a solution to this problem but all of the solutions that worked for other people didn't work for me. I also tried installing kali on my desktop which made it further in the process but then got stuck in a loop about the drive partitioning which is where I gave up. Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated, I am currently a junior in college and hoping to pursue cyber-security as a career and right now not being able to use kali is seriously holding me back.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Laxmantim said:

I am trying to dual boot Kali Linux

Let me stop you right there - don't do that. Kali isn't designed to be installed as a desktop os. If you want to use Linux and need some of the tools Kali has just install Ubuntu or Debian and install those tools separately, they are all available on most distros.

3 minutes ago, Laxmantim said:

I am currently a junior in college and hoping to pursue cyber-security as a career and right now not being able to use kali is seriously holding me back.

I mean you could just use a virtual machine...

7 minutes ago, Laxmantim said:

I used rufus-3.8

The official website recommends etcher, maybe you should try that - but as I said you shouldn't use it in dual boot.

[jdfthetech]

DO NOT DO THIS

 

If you want to run Kali, run it in a VM, do not dual boot it unless you know what you are doing (you don't).

 

If you want to pursue cyber security, slow down.  Learn Linux (and BSD), embedded hardware and general networking.  Install Ubuntu and learn the terminal, once you do that, mess around with some other distros , maybe set up a few servers using CentOS or Fedora.

 

[Laxmantim]

thanks for the feedback, I didn't realize that this was a bad idea. If it isn't a crazy long explanation would someone mind explaining why this a bad idea? I'm trying to learn more about how to use linux and I'm just curious why this considered "bad form". also I would honestly prefer to run it in a VM but i was having significant issues getting USB pass-through to work in virtual box so I decided to try dual booting, but it sounds like if i want to dual boot i should just use debian or ubuntu then? I will try that and hopefully things work better that way.

[jdfthetech]

1 hour ago, Laxmantim said:

If it isn't a crazy long explanation would someone mind explaining why this a bad idea?

Kali runs as root by default.  this means absolutely no security.  Also you don't need any of the tools.  it's a good distro for very certain testing, but honestly it's just overkill and will install a bunch of stuff you won't know how to use.

I would suggest Pop or Ubuntu to start out. You need to understand more basic things before you learn how to break them.  In the security world, linux knowledge is important, but not more important than understanding Microsoft stuff like active directory or database stuff like Oracle or SQL.

Security is a broad topic so take it slow, learn the basics such as networking, linux and server architecture and then move into more robust subjects.

My last post was a bit stern, but I wanted to emphasize not installing that for other users as well, it could really cause you some issues.