SamuraiWTF 2.0? What happened to 1.0?

So the SamuraiWTF project has released the first few release candidates for the formal 2.0 release. Since the previously available version was 0.9.9 it seems odd that the current version is 2.0RC5. We have received a number of questions and so I think that this was a good time to explain what's going on.

In 2008 when we released the first version of SamuraiWTF, we didn't have a plan on what would happen if people started to actually use the system. So when the first release went out, I just kind of made up a version number. The plan Justin and I had was to call 1.0 when we had all of the packaging and stuff done.

But now it has been a few years, and things have changed. So a bit ago, Justin and I had a conversation. It basically went around a couple ideas and thoughts. The main one being that the sub-1.0 versions were not based on a long term support (LTS) version of Ubuntu. This has caused a large number of problems as we move forward and try to go from one version to the next. So we came up with a solution. We would move to 10.04 LTS and build the 1.0 release. This was matched with work that I was doing in updating Sec542, the web pentesting course at SANS, so it was an efficient use of my time.  🙂 

So 1.0 was built, but sadly never publicly released. We used it to build out the exercises and then ran out of time in getting it polished up for a formal release. And then time went on. We decided that we would tie the major version number of SamuraiWTF to the LTS version of Ubuntu.

A bit ago, Justin started working on getting us transitioned to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. He has accomplished a ton of work, which has resulted in the 2.0RC versions that are currently out on SourceForge. The 2.x versions will all be built on 12.04 of Ubuntu. And then when we move to 14.04, SamuraiWTF will then be at 3.0. Make sense?

So now for some technical details of 2.0. First, it requires more RAM. It seems that 2GB is the sweet spot with more being wonderful.  🙂  It also defaults to KDE. Not to start a war, but Justin and I have always favored KDE and have finally made it the default. (Don't ask why this wasn't the case from the beginning.) You can still switch to Gnome and all of the settings and menus are there.

There is also a new thing on the system. That's the samurai program. This is a neat idea of Justin's that provides help to new and experienced users of SamuraiWTF. All that you do is type samurai at a terminal and you can get information about the tools and features of the environment. When you boot the new version give it a shot.