how can i install Kali Linux on my toshiba, OS windows 8.1

Kali Linux is an operating system, so it can't be installed directly onto the windows platform like an application. You (basically) have 2 options:

Install Kali Linux on a separate disk partition of your hard drive (or on a secondary hard drive, or on a usb stick, or external hard drive) and boot into Kali when you want to use it, and windows the rest of the time.

Here's the official walkthrough on this method from the Offensive Security folks: http://docs.kali.org/installation/dual-boot-kali-with-windows

Install Kali Linux using virtualization, for example, using VirtualBox

To this you would need to first install virtual box: http://www.wikihow.com/Install-VirtualBox

and then create a Kali Linux virtual machine: http://www.osboxes.org/kali-linux/

Sorry for all the links, but its kind of an involved process, and it seemed asinine to rewrite everything.

Now, one final note. Be careful if you decide to go the dual-boot route, because many an individual has accidentally wiped their primary OS on accident when trying to install something side-by-side. I would recommend installing it on an dedicated external hard drive, if you have a fast enough port like an eSATA or similar.
The Kali Forum has a pretty good overview of this approach: https://forums.kali.org/showthread.php?22032-How-to-install-Kali-Linux-on-External-Hard-Drive

Best wishes and have fun!

TheSpenny

Posted 2015-07-08T01:03:36.067

Reputation: 69

thank you so much for the reply, unfortunately, it isnt that helpful to me being that i am rather new to this. i have a separate hard drive that i would prefer to run it off of rather that partitioning my hard drive, I tried followed the guide that you supplied for puting it on an external drive but sadly it wasnt much help. could you be more specific on how to do that? i greatly appreciate your time. – Jammie – 2015-07-08T02:53:26.480

What kind of hard drive do you have? How does it connect to your computer? If its USB, it needs to be USB3 or it won't really work, prior version of USB just don't have a high enough bitrate to work well. You should be able to tell based off markings on the cable or the hard drive itself, a label on the box it came in, or by transferring a large file onto the hard drive--if during transfer the speed approaches 40mb/s then you know you've got USB3 and you can proceed. Let me know once you've figured out what you're working with, then I'd be happy to help you out with the next step. – TheSpenny – 2015-07-08T19:08:16.780

Also, just out of curiosity, what do you need Kali for? Its not exactly the most approachable Linux distro, and if you're trying to do any kind of penetration testing or something similar, you're likely facing a steep learning curve if you haven't done anything like this before. If you're just looking for windows alternatives, I would start with ubuntu, which is much more "friendly" for newcomers to the linux world. – TheSpenny – 2015-07-08T19:13:10.597

how can i install Kali Linux on my toshiba, OS windows 8.1

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